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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

How often did your newborn breast feed?

36 replies

Dozeyland · 19/10/2010 12:53

Day & night time?

How often through the night?

OP posts:

winnybella · 19/10/2010 12:54

Pretty much non-stop.

tutu100 · 19/10/2010 12:55

Again pretty much non-stop, although ds2 could go a bit longer between feeds than ds1 so maybe every 2 hours.

tutu100 · 19/10/2010 12:56

ds1 virtually didn't come off my boob for the first 4 months.

Ealingkate · 19/10/2010 12:56

A lot! I didn't ever count how many times really, but it can be pretty much all the time sometimes. Why did you ask the question?? Are you worried that s/he is feeding too much or too little?

tutu100 · 19/10/2010 12:56

Other than to change sides !

mousymouse · 19/10/2010 12:56

all the time. maybe in between 2 hours of sleep for both of us.
how often through the night? same as during the day...although at about 2 weeks we started to have a rhythm of day and night.

AllOverIt · 19/10/2010 12:57

Every two hours or so at the start, but could be every hour for a while, or every three. I fed on demand, took the lead from her. She'd go longer at night, and then cluster feed in the evening.

ginger2000 · 19/10/2010 13:03

sometimes 2 hours, sometimes 2 mins! Slightly longer at night now (she is 22 days!) but even then sometimes hourly!
am feeding totally on demand at the moment so am going with whenever even though it it exhausting!!

pinkjello · 19/10/2010 13:06

Pretty much constantly. Often just off for 15 or 20min then back on for an hour.

seeker · 19/10/2010 13:09

Once a day. Each feed took 24 hours.

Original poster

Dozeyland · 19/10/2010 13:14

So with feeding on demand, if he/she cries/cues do you just feed first or check the other (nappy/sleepy/over stimulated/temp etc

OP posts:

Guacamole · 19/10/2010 13:18

Every 2 hours (each feed lasting about 30 minutes) during the day, sometimes he'd stretch to 3 hours at night.

thehumanpacifier · 19/10/2010 13:18

Constantly for a couple of months. I remember after 6 weeks DS fed less often and feeds were shorter. I just sat back and enjoyed the feeds, best way to keep the milk coming,

Guacamole · 19/10/2010 13:20

I'd check nappy, if it was fine I'd feed. If he was tired he'd fall asleep whilst feeding.

MoonUnitAlpha · 19/10/2010 13:22

Mine was jaundiced so very sleepy, so for the first couple of weeks I had to wake him every 2 hours day and night to feed. Once he regained his birthweight I stopped waking him and he demanded a feed about once every 1-3 hours in the day and every 3-5 at night.

He's 10 weeks now and feeds every 2-3 hours in the day, and does a 7-8 hour stretch at night plus a 3 hour stretch at night.

I offered him a feed at every whimper at first - if refused then checked for other problems. Now he's a bit older I can generally tell if he's hungry/tired/wet.

nymphadora · 19/10/2010 13:23

Dd3 is similar to guacamole. About 2 -3 hours for approx 30 mins though did a solid 3 hours last night.

crikeybadger · 19/10/2010 13:25

Dozeyland, I found it hard in the early days to work out if they were crying for hunger or tiredness or something else. I wish now I'd just offered boob at the first instance - if they feed then that's great, if they fall asleep that's great too.

As you'll see from the above posts, babies feed ALOT in the first couple of months and that is good as it builds up your supply and gets the feeding established. In fact rather than thinking of it as 'feeds', I find it's helpful to think of offering the breast as offering comfort as well as nourishment.

hotbot · 19/10/2010 13:27

Seeker - ditto , bloody exhausting

willowstar · 19/10/2010 13:30

same here, I had no idea before I had my daughter that babies could feed so much and i don't think I fed her enough in the first week and couldn't work out why she cried all the time! but yes, she fed and fed and fed and fed and fed. 45 mins from every hour and sometimes more. she didn't sleep much during the day, cluster fed in the evenings and slept about 5 hours at night.

RubyBuckleberry · 19/10/2010 13:35

first few days for ages. 45mins one side. 45 mins the other then would pass out for a few hours then do it all again. nappy changes in their somewhere too. once we got home i tried to aim for every 2/3 hours (naively following the BW) and that actually worked for us. i had stacks of milk after day 3 after the constant feed fest for the first few days and DS was a little barracuda so was pretty efficient at clearing all the colostrum/milk so once we were home i think he got a good belly full every 2/3 hours despite only being on for 20minutes or so. (at the time i was paranoid that he wasn't getting any 'hind' milk but when he put on a pound in a week, i promptly threw the BW in the bin and refered to Jack Newman from then on ). it turned out i had a fast let down and DS was getting most of the milk in the first few minutes and he was having to gulp it. being such a barracuda and tongue tied DS did give me a nasty crack so i expressed for a week to let it heal. after that it was fine. he then started feeding for 3 minutes in the day every 2 hours or so and was a total snacker. i'm sure the BW would have been proud. not . he also started taking long focused feeds at night from 4 -9 months as was too distracted in the day to feed. basically he did nothing the books said he would do except the books that said chill out and enjoy your baby and follow their lead. once i did that, i was much happier!

sorry gone on a bit ...

jemjabella · 19/10/2010 17:32

seeker's post is spot on

Porcelain · 19/10/2010 17:39

whenever he looked hungry, he rarely got to cry unless he was tired, then I fed and rocked him to sleep. He didn't cry for a nappy until he was a few weeks old, I just changed him when I switched sides.

porcamiseria · 19/10/2010 19:53

LOL at seeker!

it does make me laugh when I read baby books that said newborns fed 8 time a day, WTF! 24 times a day more like

cinnamongreyhound · 19/10/2010 20:23

Pretty much every 3 hours, cluster fed every hour from 6 until 9 and then 4-5hours until next feed and back to 3 hours. 5 weeks now and seems to have go himself into a pattern of 3 hourly and feeds 10-15min at a time. DS1 was about the same but took 45mins-1hr per feed.

barkfox · 19/10/2010 21:29

Pretty much constantly. I told our MW that I didn't know how often DS fed because I didn't know what counted as a 'feed'. I think I had vague expectations of 'twenty minutes on', with an hour between feeds, etc. It just wasn't that clear cut in reality! more like '5 mins on, 10 mins nap, 7 mins on, 20 mins on/off/fuss/cry/burp - ooh, an hour nap! then 15 mins feed'....

So it was either one long feed all day, with small breaks, or a hundred feeds. Depends how you define it, IYSWIM.

I found all the 'newborns feed 9-12 times in 24 hours' info very misleading. It's too neat a description. I kept expecting breaks which never came, and this got me down. I also think the expectation that feeds will be very 'defined' come from a bottle feeding culture. Not a criticism of formula feeders, I'm just pointing out the mechanics of bottle feeding make it a more defined act. The feed only starts when the bottle is ready - formula has to be thrown away after an hour, etc etc.

I should point out that DS was and is v healthy,and thriving. He was obviously doing exactly the right thing for him. I found it very demanding. It has got a lot easier at 13 weeks, btw... just like everyone said it would...

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