5 weeks and only 2 hours between feedings (BF)

[Snakeears]

Hi there,

I just wanted to see if there is anything I haven't tried. My DS is 5 weeks today was born 6lbs 10 and last week was 8lbs 10 so putting on weight well after initial loss of 6%. Basically he never goes longer than 2 hours between feeds and this is really tiring for me in the night so selfishly I am trying to think of ways round it and helping him to go longer between feeds. I have tried expressing to help my let down, encouraging him to go longer (he doesn't really like to go longer than 20 mins - I have tried waking him up and getting him to go back on. He does wake up but won't open his mouth and looks at me as if I am bonkers!) If he only goes 10 mins I always put him back on the same side so he gets hind milk to fill him up.

I have tried leaving hi longer between feeds by rocking him to sleep in his pram or even a dummy yesterday thinking he might then take more but he doesn't take more than 20 mins.

Do I just need to wait until he gets older or bigger?

Thank you for any help x

[MigGril]

Don't worry about the length of time he feed's for all baby's are different so the lenght of feed is irrelivent if he's gaining weight well.

Plus I would switch to the other side if he come's off one side on his own. There is no need to worry about putting him back on the same side to get the fattier milk.

He's very young to go more then 2hours between feeds. This is normal for a baby his age and will gradualy change as he get's bigger. Trying to force him to go longer between feed's will just make you both frustrated.

Is he doing this overnight to? Or does he have at lest one longer streach of sleep? If this is what you would like to achive then try feeding him more often in the evening's so he top's up to go a bit longer overnight.

really when feeding a healthy term BF baby the best thing you can do is throw out the clock and follow baby's cues.

[dreamfeeder]

I don't think amount of time he feeds for matters. As I understood it (I'm down to 1 feed a day with my 13 month old), the baby gets more efficient at extracting the milk as they get bigger, so could be getting more from each feed as he gets a more effective suck. My friend's DD was a 5 minute feeder, always, and would go 5 hours on that at night!

I was stuck with a frequent feed pattern with my DD of every 2 hours at night, though she would go loonger in the day. In the end, the HV and mw's all just kept saying 'feed on demand' but my family saw I couldn't cope and advised me to stretch out length of time between feeds. When my DD cried, my dad, or friend, or mum, would take her for a walk, or cuddle her, and often she could be totally distracted for up to another hour. This really made me think well, she couldn't have been that starving then!!! At that weight my DD went longer. It does depend on your baby though... You know him best.

For me, the stretching it out helped ME know she could go longer in the day, but the nights didn't improve much til she was in her own cot in her own room at 9 weeks. She is, and always has been a light sleeper, and I think me right by her, smelling the milk just kept her getting up for it. Having NEVER done more than 3 hours one night, at 9 weeks I put her in her cot (in desperation, I was so exhausted, people kept telling me to try it) and she slept 8 hours straight. 8 HOURS!!!! I checked she was still alive 4 times, and felt like my boobs were going to explode!!! She continued to improve from there.

I never had any joy with getting her to go back on. If I gave her both boobs to try and fill her up more she just puked. I tried lots of things, but not in my room (which I was most reluctant to try, both becuase of cot death fears, and the thought of traipsing back and forth all night to feed her) was the only thing that worked for me.

Good luck!!

[Mampig]

Hi- not what you want to hear but my 14 wo is still only going 2 hours. Think that's the norm when the are so little!!

[Stinax]

Please don't worry about it. Some babies regardless of age will feed every two hours, some maybe even more often so it may be something you'll have to deal with. It's nothing you're doing wrong.

However, many babies feed like this just for the first few weeks, they have to feed little and often due to the small size of their tummies and also as it builds your milk supply up. You should never really judge your breastfeeding experience on the first 6 weeks because it can be crazy but I promise you it gets easier.

I didn't do it so I'm no expert but many women on here reccomend co-sleeping when you have a baby who feeds a lot in the night. I'm sure someone will provide you with a link on how to do it safely.

Well done so far

[thisisyesterday]

i'm afraid he is being a perfectly normal 5 week old breastfed baby!
it all sounds just right to me, 20 min feeds, every 2 hours...

it can be really tough, and really intense in the early days of breastfeeding, but when you look back at it after you realise what a tiny amount of time it is in the grand scheme of things.
ds2 fed every 45-90 minutes day and night for his first 9 months and it was hell on earth. but I look back and think well, 9 months out of my entire life really isn't that big a deal lol

so I would say go with it. he'll stretch the feeds out further as he gets older

[poppygolucky]

Have you tried feeding more through the day? My 15 wo DD feeds two hourly through the day and more like hourly in the evening! However, she now can go up to 8 hours through the night. (However not getting too cocky as aware sleep regression, teething etc yet to kick in!)

[cantmakecarrotcake]

Like the others say, this is completely normal for a baby that age. DD (similar size at birth) fed every 2 hours until about 4 months, then I managed to get her to go 2.5 hr which we stuck with until she started solids.

It might be that eventually you can go 3 hours between feeds - that seems to be a relatively common pattern I've seen among others - but we never managed it. I've also seen 4 hours, but that's very Gina Ford...

Cluster feeding in the evenings may help the night time wakenings. They do get there with the sleep eventually - although at nearly 9 months last night's 2 night feeds was a bit tiresome.

[EauRouge]

Yes, just another voice to add to the chorus of "this sounds normal and you're doing really well" :)

Spacing feeds out at such an early age isn't recommended so as Stinax says, a lot of mothers co-sleep during the early days to maximise their sleep. Co-sleeping is perfectly safe if you follow a few simple guidelines and won't create any bad habits or make a rod for your own back or any of that nonsense Here are some practical tips for safe co-sleeping.