Feeding newborn

[Luckyme30]

Hello

I have a 2 week old baby, up until the weekend he had lost weight but is now creeping back up to birth weight and I hope to have signed off today by the midwife.

Midwife and HV have suggested that we can now start letting him feed on demand though midwife says to set an alarm for every 4 hours as we shouldn’t be letting him go over that really.

Advice I’ve read says they should have 8 bottles every 24 hours which means us waking him every 3 hours?!

Just wondering what people’s thoughts and experiences are on this? Me and my OH are not keen on waking him every 3 hours for feeding but would rather let him dictate when he wants a bottle - equally though worried the the may start to drop weight again as it took him a while to gain and we were in a strict feeding regime of every 3 hours in order to get him to gain!

Any advice, tips, thoughts very welcome!....

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

We woke every 3 hours between 7am and 7pm. The baby then woke as needed between 7pm and 7am.

[PotteringAlong]

Admittedly my 3 were breastfed, but I would be amazed If they had gone longer than 3 hours without a feed day or night. I would feed on demand, but no way would I be letting a 2 week old go for longer than 4 hours without a feed and, if there have been concerns about weight gain, every 3 hours seems sensible.

I think the concern is that they don’t wake up to feed because they are too hungry and thus too sleepy if their body weight is low. When they are bigger they are a bit more robust and will wake up when hungry.

[Bobbiepin]

Remember you don't need to wake baby fully to feed, you can dream feed. Just stir him gently so he's out of deep sleep then introduce the bottle. Should help him get back to sleep easier.

It is tempting to let a sleeping baby sleep through but he needs to eat. I'd say 4 hours between feeds is the absolute maximum. 2-3 hours is best.

[MichelleOR84]

My DS was slow to put on weight and he even dropped from 50th percentile to 11th percentile when he was 8 weeks old . I was feeding every 2-3 hours during the day and every 3-4 hours at night . I use to offer him the boob extra during the day even when he didn’t ask for it ( he always took it if I offered ) and then I let him decide when to nurse at night . However when he was dropping weight I started nursing every 2-3 hours around the clock for a few weeks until he gained a bit .

[KitKatastrophe]

I dont know about bottle feeding, it might be different, but with breastfeeding they wouldnt feed at regular intervals anyway. So maybe 3 feeds overnight but then 5 or 6 during the day, making it enough overall.

Are you having to wake him up to feed every time? I would have thought a 2 week old would wake every 3 or 4 hours by themselves anyway!

[Luckyme30]

Were formula feeding and he’s having 100-120ml at each feed (increased by the midwife a week ago when his weight was dropping).

He generally wakes anywhere between 3 and 3.5 hours sometimes goes to 4.

I’ve heard about dream feeding but no idea what it is - our usual routine is to wake him (when we were strictly feeding every 3 hours) change him and then feed.

He is quite unsettled and I wonder if it’s because we’re changing before each feed so that really unsettles him and then sometimes he won’t sleep for a good 2-3 hours making him knackered for his next feed :(