Should I wake up my 2 week old to feed?

[sundayb3st]

My dd is 2 and a half weeks old and she's as good as gold. She eats and sleeps well and is putting on weight beautifully.
In the day she normally eats every 3 hours and in the night 3-4 hours. Sometimes though she would rather sleep than eat and it's impossible to wake her up. Should I be waking her up to eat every 3 hours in the day? (I'm happy to let her sleep in the night). Or is it ok to let her decide when she wants food? Will she get dehydrated if I let her sleep for too long?
Any advice appreciated. Thank you.

[ChocolateHelps]

is she jaundiced? that can make babies extra sleepy and not in a good way. if she is then you'll need to wake her

[TheVisitor]

If she's fine, gaining weight beautifully and a happy little pickle, she may just be putting herself on to a 3-4 hour routine, rather than 3. There are no hard and fast rules. My lot put themselves on a 4 hourly schedule, and I could set my watch by them.

[harecare]

Never wake a sleeping baby is my general rule.

[Limelight]

I'm with harecare.

[pinkdaisy]

Me too! There is a reason that "let sleeping babies lie, and never wake a sleeping baby", became a saying!!!!
Just enjoy!!!!

[sundayb3st]

Thank you all for your replies. I'm a new a mum and all this is soooo new for me :)
chocolate - not at all.
visitor - you might be right. I think she takes after her dad - he loves his sleep :)

[MaternityNursesaregreat]

I would ask first if you are breast or bottle feeding.

If breast feeding, if your baby has regained his/her birth weight and over 6lbs,
allow to sleep upto 6hrs and then feed. For baby, but also because you are working to establish your supply. Week three is generally a growth spurt week, so you definately need to keep up stimulation to increase the milk production for then.

[MaternityNursesaregreat]

sorry, that should be 6.6lbs...I'm use to working in metric so would have normally said 3kgs.

[sundayb3st]

maternitynurse - she's breast feeding and already 3.65 kg. Her birth weight was 3.30. Will she not get dehydrated if i leave so long without food?

[MaternityNursesaregreat]

If she is feeding well through the day and taking from you what she needs, I certainly would no need to be concerned about dehydration.

The families I work with, providing baby is gaining weight & feeding well I advise them to allow baby to sleep up to **6hrs from the start of the last night feed.

ie- if the last feed was at 9.30pm, I set the alarm for 3.30am for the next feed. I then start the day again at 7am.
She may well wake before this - in which case feed her then and time the 6hrs from then, or when 7am arrives.
She will not dehydrate assuming she, as said above, is gaining weight/feeding well.

The important thing here is that you do feed her simply to keep the breast milk supply stimulated.

If she slept past 3.30 you could express 30mls from each breast-which stimulates the breasts, essential in the first few weeks to establish the supply, and go back to sleep yourself until she wakes you.

With breast feeding mothers I work to the following times in the first few weeks -

7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 6pm, 9.30pm
then not later than 2.30am (up to age 2wks & before regaining BW)

then not later than 3.30am (**after 2wks & regained BW)

Hope this doesn't sound like double dutch...

[dietcokeandwine]

I agree with harecare in that I would never wake a sleeping baby between the hours of 11pm and 7am

but I have always woken my babies (both very happy breastfeeders who gained weight really well) every three hours during the day (i.e. from 7 am - 10:30pm) to feed in the early days. Actually, reading maternitynurses post, I did something very similar in terms of timings....definitely helped coax them into a feeding routine (without being clock bound - if they were ever hungry before 3 hours were up, they got fed!) and ensured that when they were ready to sleep longer stretches, they did so at night, not during the day. So personally I'd recommend persevering with waking her three hourly during daytime hours.

[harecare]

I never woke DDs and it never occurred to me they'd get dehydrated. I felt I was training them to be able to sleep and it worked! They both started sleeping from about 8ish til 2/3 ish from about 4 weeks allowing me to go out in the evenings for a couple of hours if I wanted. By 8-10 weeks they both slept right through til morning! All that changed around 16 weeks though as they started to wake again in the night.
You're very lucky to get a good sleeper, don't tell everyone as they'll be jealous!

[tonythetiger]

Depends on weight, I think. HV said not to wake during the night once DD had started gaining weight after the first 2-week weight loss. My DD used to go 4 hours at 2 or 3 weeks too (still does at 9 weeks - keep hoping she'll go a bit longer at night!!).

[sundayb3st]

Thank you all. That's very useful.
So you think that in the day I should keep waking her up every 3 hours?

[MaternityNursesaregreat]

Definately - you do not want to have a baby with day/night reversed.
There will come a time in the next week or two where she will
be more awake, and ideally you want to minimize the likelihood of her doing this at night.

Waking her in the day for feeds will give her some awake/semi alert time
and this should naturally occur during daytime if she is sleeping at night with out disturbance.

[sundayb3st]

Thank you maternitynurse for your great advice.

I really appreciate you all took time to respond to my question. Thank you
Xx

[MaternityNursesaregreat]

You're welcome.
PM if I can help further.

[Louandmax]

Hi maternitynurse

Can I pm you? I have a similar question...

Thanks
Louise