Let sleeping babies lie....??

[JamieJay]

First time mum looking for a little advice from the more knowledgeable

4 day old DD, EBF, some minor latch issues which we're working on but very alert, good colour, happy, plenty of wet and dirty nappies (colour has changed to orange this morning)

Milk came in on Saturday evening and seems to be plenty of it, weighed this morning and she's only lost 4% of birthweight (was 8lbs 15ozs at birth) so midwife happy.

Am feeding on demand but she has no real pattern yet, today:

Midnight - 20 mins
01:45 - 30 mins
05:00 - I tried to feed her but she wasn't interested and just looked a nipple with mild amusement (not distressed in any way)
06:00 - 20 mins
07:10 - 10 mins
07:40 - 10 mins
09:30 - 15 mins

Sleeps well between feeds and is still asleep now having gone straight down after feed.

Should I wake up or just trust her to feed herself when she's hungry given there are no weight issues as such.

If it makes an difference, she has gone 4 hours between feeds 3 times in the last 48 hours (including this morning) and then fed regularly for a few hours.

Sorry it's long and thanks for any and all advice

Yes, let her wake up when she wants to eat. If you wake her up she will be sleepy and might not get such a good feed. And tbh waking up a sleeping baby can be very very difficult...

Sounds like it is all going well. Congratulations!

Congrats and well done with the feeding!

My DS is 6 weeks old and have just fed on demand from the beginning. Was told by a BF Counsellor that as long as there were plenty of wet and dirty nappies and DS was happy and alert that I could trust him to let me know when he needed feeding. It's worked out really well for us.

I wouldn't dream of waking DS up! He is very good at letting me know when his mealtimes are!

I think let her set the pace for now, really she needs sleep as much as milk being born is hard work, I reckon they are designed to sleep so that you can too.

Thanks all - I will try and relax and follow her lead on this one. Breastfeeding is a wonderful thing but boy can it be scary at times

Morloth you're bound to be right about the recovering from the birth - whole thing was 6 hours long from first contraction to birth with only a 53 minute second stage so she had a bit of a time of it!

Let her set the pace, but try and encourage the longer gaps between feeds to be at night, eg if she hasn't fed for 3 hours in the day and she's woken up a bit offer the breast even if she's not actually demanding it. Sounds like she's doing that anyway.

You sound like you are doing a great job and it also sounds as though you and your dd are really getting the hang of breastfeeding. The early days can be really hard and you just don't know what is normal. You will get lots of conflicting advice too. I didn't allow my dd to go for longer than 4 hours between feeds during the day or 6 hours between feeds during the night. I was given this advice by midwives. My dd is now 19 weeks and there still isn't any pattern to feeds so I wouldn't worry about seeing any kind of pattern yet. However, she does know the difference between night and day and I think that this is because she has always gotten enough calories from frequent feeds during the day and we have had a bedtime routine from very early on. Congratulations and good luck!