remind me: how often do babies feed at 4 months?

[MamaChris]

I have to do an interview day at work in feb, when the dts will be 4 months. can anyone remind me how long babies go between feeds at 4 months, and how long those feeds take?

I need to say now that I need interviews spaced so I can feed them, and might be that we need to spread them over 2 days to get a comfortable schedule, but with 3 week old babies who feed constantly, I can't remember what happens at 4 months!

It depends on the baby - I don't think there is any reliable way you can predict what a 3 week old baby will be doing at 4 months. 4 month old babies do still feed very frequently. Some babies actually start feeding more frequently as they have a growth spurt at around this time.

I'd definitely go for having the interviews spaced out over 2 days, with gaps in between.

more frequently?!? argh! that doesn't seem possible

but might they be able to go 1.5 hours at least? otherwise I can't do a 1 hour interview plus travel to/from work at all.....

2 to 2.5 hours for mine. Think her older sibs were the same. She only feeds for 5 or 10 mins. Takes about 4oz of ebm in a bottle.

my dd (4 1/2 mo) is ebf and during the day she's still feeding every two hours sometimes a little more or less. Nights are three or four hours. She doesn't day nap so the feeding schedule is pretty relentless! Hope that helps. I'm thinking we're the worst case scenario. Got friends with same age babies who go three or four hours! I'd love to be living a best case scenario ha ha.

Mine fed hourly at home but 3-4 hours if out & about/asleep. Agree that it's impossible to predict but you should be able to go for 2hrs without baby suffering as a consequence.

my ds3 is 5 months. he is still feeding every 1-2.5 hours...

...same at night. he was sleeping 4-6 hours in one stretch until 16 weeks. ds2 was the same, in fact fed every 45-60 mins at night. i also think we are worst case scenario!

oh weasie, ds1 woke and fed every 40 mins till he was about 9 months old! but I recall he could go longer between feeds in the day by then.

it does at least sound like 1.5 hours (daytimes) is possible by 4 months, which is helpful :)

Really depends but you will be able to leave them for 2 hours quite safely without a feed although they may get a bit cross towards the end if in the middle of a growth spurt or something. Will be absolutely fine though.

I'm very relieved to read the responses on here. Slight hijack - those whose LOs feed 2.5 hourly or less, do they take just one side or both? I'm still unsure if I should offer both. If I do she usually chucks a fair amount of milk back, although she will go longer that way. Thanks.

I'm with newbielisa wrt my DD's schedule!

I only offer one side at a time but then I'm a prolific expresser (she takes colief and give her the drops in an ounce at each feed). A friend of mine whose DS hasn't been gaining was told by h.v. to just offer one side and if they feed again within 3 hours then offer the same breast again so they're getting more hind than foremilk).

Currently I switch sides at each feed too and I haven't had any problems with poo or weight gain. I tend to offer the second side if she cries for more, but leave it if she's happy. I'll start the next feed on the second side if she's had it. It's kind of instinctive to do it that way, and I recently found out DD has reflux so I wonder if I knew somewhere deep down that she'd do better on smaller, more frequent feeds.

I reckon the reason she chucks milk up if I give two sides is that she loves to comfort suck, and giving her the second side means she gets too much milk.

well, my DD still fed up to 12 times in 24hours up until she was 6.5 months (she was BF) sometimes she would go 3 hours, sometimes half an hour. There was never any predicting when she would want fed!

Mine about every three hours.

At night she would feed when we put her down (about 8pm) then again at about 11pm when we went to bed, then usually once again in the night at about 3am, then in the morning at 7am.

Then I used to offer boobs every 3 hours or so during the day.

Now she is 16 mths, it sounds pretty full on in retrospect! And here I am, thinking about no. 2 ....