Wake baby for feed?

[mrsjoker35]

Im going on 38 weeks pregnant,so im in full on nesting mode!

Ive just been thinking about certain things, and one of those things is whether or not to wake my baby up to feed,or if i just let her nap and wake up for a feed when she wants. That's the way all MY family have done it. Just looking for other peoples opinions on the matter :)

Unless they are underweight, there's no reason to wake baby for a feed. Maybe a dream feed before bed.

First child - woke for feeds.

Second child - didn't.

They both did very well and we're both ebf. I just got more sleep with the second

If you're BF you might well want to wake them from a longer than normal sleep...

I left my baby to sleep in the first day and he slept from 11pm - 6am and he did lose some weight.

I'm having to set the alarm clock to feed him now to get the weight back on. I guess it depends how long your baby is sleeping.

If breastfeeding, feed on demand.

However, when establishing feeding babies can get sleepy, therefore it's a good idea not to let them go more than 3 hours between feeds (4 at night). Once you've reached 10 days, weight gain is good, no sign of jaundice and your midwife has handed you over to the health visitor never ever wake a sleeping baby.

When my dd started sleeping through at about 3 months, her weight gain dropped off a bit and the HV told us to wake her up for a feed. Big mistake. She didn't sleep through for two years. Wish we'd never listened!

I wouldn't let a small baby sleep for more than 2-3hrs in the day without a feed in order to help them get their calories during the day rather than the night but that's just based on my sample of two. Otherwise what dannydyer said.

Tbh it was very, very rarely a problem, sadly.

Thank you for your replies

Appreciated and very helpful xx