Should I wake my 4 week old for night feeds?

[AmeliaEarhart]

I set my alarm to wake him every 4 hours, but I get the impression he'd happily sleep for much longer if I let him. I still have the midwife's advice that he should go no longer than 3 hours between feeds ringing in my ears, so I'm torn...

He's exclusively breastfed BTW, and is fed on demand during the day.

Quick question, when does day become night? Eg: if baby asleep from say 630pm would you leave to sleep or wake at 1030pm for feed?

Yes Loopy you need to be a bit careful with prem babies.

Silver - I would probably wake for a feed at that point as it may well get you a longer uninterrupted sleep.

My DS started sleeping midnight-7am at 3 weeks. The mw said not to wake him unless he wasn't doing wet/dirty nappies or gaining weight. Now at 6 weeks old he usually sleeps midnight-8am! I'm really lucky. He cluster feeds like mad from 7pm so I think he stocks himself up then. Makes it hard to eat my tea, but I don't care - so nice to be getting the sleep! He's putting on loads of weight. As long as yours is too, I think it's fine,

Poppt your advice is exactly the type that had me in tears. I never fed dd1 more than 5 times a day and I never had supply issues, quite the reverse! Please stop saying must and have to!

PinkElephantsOnParade -the mw told me not to go more than 5 hours because babies have small tummies and do need frequent feeding early on. I'm really surprised about a baby going 8 hours between a feed.

I went to a bf group where I was also advised that the early morning feeds were likely to have a higher concentration of prolactin in them.

My baby was a happy to starve baby. And it was awful as looking back until I got proper advice I was told to just sleep through and enjoy it, but it took 6 weeks for my baby to gain weight and it took me waking my baby through the night and loads of bfing. Often feeding every 2 hours during the day.

Looking back my baby was hungry but was not waking to conserve what energy he had iyshim.

This is just my experience.

This is a good summary

snuggle - I guess this is a very good example of there being no hard and fast rule with babies and you must consider your own individual baby to decide what to do.

In your case your baby was not gaining weight so the advice you got was sensible.

In my case my DD was gaining weight hand over fist and fed a lot during the day, so did not need to feed so much during the night.

I also proved to the midwife that she was taking 4-5oz per feed, though I know this is unusual. Big bellies run in our family!

My DD was certainly not short of energy, was capable of letting us know in no uncertain terms when she was hungry.

She was very alert during the day so this may expain her long sleep at night.

So I was quite happy that she was getting enough sustenance, but the MW still nagged me to wake her at night, though she clearly did not need it.

I ignored her as I was very sure that DD was fine, but someone with less confidence may have done what they were told and disturbed a good sleep pattern.

Babies are all individuals as this thread has shown. On average, for a good supply of breastmilk, babies usually need 8-12 feeds in 24 hours. Some women do not need that amount of stimulation to produce milk because they are naturally high producers. Other women may need to feed more than that to produce enough milk.
Snugglepops has given her experience of a 'happy starver'.
If, at the end of the day, a baby is gaining weight, feeding well and peeing and pooing, then they do not need woekn for feeds.
However, at the start of breastfeeding, if the breasts are not stimulated enough, then for some women it will be hard to produce enough milk due to lack of stimulation.
It is better to advise overfeeding initially until the baby's healthy pattern is known, than have an underfed baby with a mother with supply issues. It is a harder slog then to reverse.

So any idea what to do with a baby who sleeps in the evening from about 6 onwards, should we wake him at 9 for the before bedtime feed, or should we let him go until he wakes which could be 10.30? It's a problem as I'm so wrecked I'd like to go to bed around 9.30. He is just 4 weeks old now and growing like a weed.