how often should a new born be fed and how does the pattern change as the child gets older?

[duckcentral]

Is there a handy link somewhere with advice on how often a baby should be fed both as a newborn and then as they get older eg something to give me an idea of the pattern of feeds at 5 weeks (which is now), 3 months, 6 months? It would be handy to have this for both b/f patterns and bottle (how much formula by what age) since I am doing mixed feeding.

I don't intend to follow anything too prescriptive but would be useful to have some kind of check list that I can consult from time to time to make sure baby and I are roughly on track.

I personally fed on demand and was solely bottle feeding.

At 5 weeks, its too early in my opinion to start enforcing routines, I still dont have much of a routine with Becky who is nearly 8 months old!

DC, have a look at \link{http://kellymom.com/\kellymom.com} for advice on breastfeeding - it's quite comprehensive. I've only breastfed so can't help on the mixed feeding front - however you should be still feeding on demand at this stage.

Are you part of a postnatal group on mumsnet? They are very useful for discussing these kind of things with people at the same stage as you. I guess you would be in \link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=2330&threadid=171768&stamp=060617204019this one}. HTH.

I know this isnt what you want to hear but if you have a happy baby who is putting on the requisite amount of weight then they will let you know when they are ready to be fed. Obviously you will compare with other babies but you will quickly see that all babies are different.

My 7 week old is fully breastfed but she feeds roughly every 2.5 hours in the day with a big 'cluster' feed in teh evening where she would feed every hour, in fact be within licking distance of my nipple from about 5pm to 10pm - I give her a bottle of expressed milk at 8-ish. She then wakes once between 10pm and 7am for a feed.

The only problem with having something to give you an idea of feeding patterns is that your baby won't have read them.

oh and mine feeds more often when its hot (for a drink I presume)

DS fed )breastfed) about evey 2.5 hrs until he was about 8 months old. He slept from 5/6pm to 10pm (from about 6 weeks old) - then would feed every few hours through the night . All attempts to make him long sleep later were futile sad]
I think on demand feeding is definitely what you should do.

I think it is usful to know though that a lot of babies get much quicker at breast feeding (don't know about bottles)as they get older. ds fed for about 50mins-1hr total for each feed in the early days. This went to about 30-40 mins at 3-4 months and was nearer 10-15mins at 6 months. Now at 18 months a feed lasts anything between 1 min for a quick nip to 1 hout again for a long leisurely morning feed. They really do change. Also he was not an amazingly keen breastfeeder for his first year but by about 16 months he started to be much keener. The point is whenever you think you have a routine/pattern it changes !!

lazycow (and others), thanks. Don't worry wasn't expecting a little Gina Ford in the Moses basket so not really looking for a routine. I just wanted an idea if she was getting enough since she feed very badly when first born (v.v. sleepy). Lazy cow, your point about how long on the breast is particularly what I was looking for (but was too dazed to write clearly). We're taking about an hour at the moment but I do remember last time we started off on about an hour and a half and then this turned into about 15 minutes per feed but I couldn't remember when this happened (although obviously every child is different so may not happen).

I would like to join a post natal group on MN to hear how/what others are doing. Miaou, I wasn't very sure how to follow your link. Sorry for ignorance but once I've gone into eg Talk, what do I do from there to get that link?

here is the link\link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=2330&threadid=171768&stamp=060617204019th\here}.

ooops sorry duck, I ended up posting in a hurry as I had to rescue ds from the cat (or was that the cat from ds? ) so I didn't notice it hadn't come up properly! I am in the Aug 05 postnatal group and it's lovely to chat to others in the same boat . Welcome to mumsnet btw!

I also fed on demand both when breast and bottlefeeding. Though when bottlefeeding it did form into a pattern of around every 3-4 hours. He cut himself down to 4 bottles a day when only 8 weeks old which shocked me as my dd was on 6 for ages. They are all different let your baby guide you and you'll be fine.