When to stop waking to feed?

[Fantasticmrsfoxy]

hello all,
My ds (dc2) will be 3 weeks tomorrow. I am still waking him every 2.5 hours through the evening/night to feed him. I was just wondering when my milk supply will be established enough to let him wake naturally for a feed? He is gaining weight v well (went back to birthweight after 5 days, gaining more or less 1 oz a day, lots of wet and dirty nappies). I think I am paranoid as dc1 needed phototherapy for v severe jaundice so I got into the habit with her of waking to feed every 2hours for quite some time. Oh - ds is exclusively breastfed.

Thanks for any help!

Have you rung one of the bf hotline? Either NCT, LLL or ABM? Do you have a bf group you can go to? My gut feeling is you can stop waking him up during the night. But maybe you can stop during the day too. He's gaining weight well so van wait for him to demand. But I think it's better to talk with someone trained in bf first.

Once a baby is gaining well and there are no other problems then there is no need to wake him to feed. You only need to do this for a sleeply baby who's not gaining, a healthy full term baby should be able to demaned feed well.

Mine was very jaundiced at first as well, but I stopped waking at night by 2 weeks. I didn't let him go more than 3 hours between feeds in the day though, in the hope he would sleep longer at night.

Thanks for the replies. I called the NCT breastfeeding helpline and they said fine to let him sleep. I got 5 hours of inunterupted sleep last night (bliss) although I strangely feel more tired....and had boobs like rocks upon waking!
Thanks again!