Hi all, I'm a new first time Mum and in the absence of a Mum of my own to ask I'm just looking for some advice. My newborn is 2 weeks old. He is being combination fed by bottle as he has been unable to latch, although I am still working on this. So he has mainly expressed breast milk with formula top ups.
At the moment I am feeding him when he's hungry, but loosely every 3hrs- so- if he doesn't wake then I wake him every 3hrs during the day times. However I found the first few nights awful with the 2-3 hr feeds, and the lack of sleep (not helped by my having no sleep on the postnatal ward for 72hrs). I felt awful and really at rock bottom with the tiredness from having 2/3 separate hours sleep. I felt like this wasn't benefitting him or me and something needed to adjust. I've been reading things on here and seen that some people push feeds to 4 hrs at night, and others even leave the baby to wake up. (Not sure if I would feel comfortable doing that last one in case he didn't wake).
At this age is it feasible to do 4hrly feeds at night? Eg 12, 4 & 8? Or is there a better way? He doesn't wake up unless he's hungry, and generally sleeps well, but his feeds do take quite long, often an hour so by the time I've changed nappy, gone to get milk bottles, got milk to room temperature it can stretch to 75mins for the whole night feed, which with 3hrs doesn't leave much space.
Does this sound like a good idea or can you suggest any ideas?
Also, I know this sounds like a silly question, but when do things need to change again? None of my baby books really specify when the feedings at night start to get further apart. Not sure how long to expect this to go on for (the night feeds) eg 6weeks, 6months, 2years?) I'm sure people will have stories of their baby sleeping through the night from birth, and others still doing numerous night feeds into childhood, but what is the average expectation?
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First time mum - night feeds
18 replies
NewGiraffe · 24/07/2020 12:15
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