How long between feeds - 6 week old

[Lynzjam]

So I have a six week old who is now putting on weight quite well. I wondered what's the longest I could leave her between feeds before waking her up? She slept for a long time today after a feed at tea time and I found myself wondering what to do!

I obviously want to keep my healthy milk supply and keep baby gaining!

hello again. :-)

didn't realise this was your post till i got to the end as it doesn't show up on my phone! is that really her 6 weeks already. :-O

hopefully somebody expert will be along to advise you, but if she is now gaining well, you should maybe be able to just leave her to wake before feeding? how long is she sleeping for at longest?

is that a couple of weeks in a row now that she has gained a fair bit?

I have been told not to let my ds, almost 8 weeks, not to go longer than 4 hours between feeds. Not that it makes much difference to me because he never goes more than 3 at a push anyway!!!

3 hours in the day. I dream of that. 21 weeks and still 1-2 hours (more like 1 hour but who's counting..,)

Basically they're all different and if thriving I'd let baby set the pace.

Yeh she is putting on more than the average weight gain (and I use nipple shields by the way!) Last weigh in she put on 9 ounces in a week.

Last night she fell asleep at half six and well..... so did I, but I didn't wake til half one and she was still sleeping! My boobs were about to burst so I woke her and she managed to deflate my boobs really quickly :-)

So that was seven hours she went without. I felt awful!

Back when she wasn't gaining much, my HV said to not let her go longer than 2 and a half hours during day the day and to leave her to wake herself at night. She's retty good at telling me herself when she's hungry but I was shocked at last night's seven hour stretch!

Hi there
I think as they get older you've not as much need to worry about not letting them go for long periods of time, my MW told me to wake DD when she was newborn if she hadn't woken after 3 hours but to be honest with both of mine I have let them set the pace.
My DD now weighs 13lb and shes 8weeks and she can go easily 6 hours but in the evenings she does tend to cluster feed and can feed at 6, 7, 8 etc So what I would say is, if over a 24 hours period you think shes fed enough then a big long sleep wont hurt (will hurt your boobs though!) But if she's consistently not waking for a feed then maybe check with the HV.
Rule of thumb though, as my HV and MW and anyone else has always said, if they're putting on weight, lots of wet nappies and are generally happy then DONT WORRY!!
Hope that helps
Kirstyx

I had to wake my ds for feeds at first, but the MW/HV told me once he had regained his birthweight to let him wake himself.

Certainly by six weeks he was regularly going 6/7 hours from bedtime, there was one memorably good night that he went from 9pm-5am! A 7 hour stretch at night sounds fine for a baby that age to me.

I do generally wake ds if he goes for three hours during the day, but that's more so he'll do a longer stretch at night than anything.

Thanks guys. If she does that again I'll express n' freeze!