Feeding

[Von1973]

Hi there, I'm new to Mumsnet and would really appreciate any advice.

I'm a new Mum for the first time. My baby boy is 9 weeks old. He is on a mix of breast milk and formula and is currently on 5 x 6oz feeds per day. His penultimate feed is generally around 8pm after which he usually goes off to sleep. The question I have is around is 5th feed of the day which we have to wake him up to give. There are two reasons for this - 1. To change his happy before he has a long stretch through the night and 2. To ensure he has his full quota of feeds for the day. Once awake, he readily takes the whole feed.

My question is, should we continue to wake him or just leave him and see what happens? I just feel bad that he may sit in a wet nappy for hours and also that he will miss his food quota.

Any advice very much welcome. Thanks.

Congrats :)

At 9 weeks I stopped waking baby up to change the nappy if it was just wet. They are so absorbent and sleep is a commodity so I left it until they were awake. Never experienced nappy rash from doing that so perhaps give it a try and see.

If you mix feed, how do you know how much breast milk baby is taking - do you express? What time does baby sleep frok /to after 8pm?

Lots of people do a 'dream feed' at around 10/11pm but that doesn't involve actually waking baby up, you just pick them up and either pop on the boob or give a bottle and then put back down.

I was going to ask the same - how do you know how much he's getting anyway? Bf doesn't work like that. Also, if you're expressing, he may not need the same volume of bf as formula. It's made of different stuff and meets their needs differently.

I wouldn't wake him to change him. DD is 11 weeks and we haven't changed a wet napoy in the night in weeks, only poo-ey ones. This isn't neglectful so don't worry! We have no nappy rash either.

I can't advise about a dreamfeedand. I've never fine one with either child and DS slept through at 8 weeks and DD is regularly going 8 hours.

(Really hope that didn't sound like a stealth boast. It was supposed to show that they're not always necessary)

Congratulations!

Thank you so much for your replies and for your congratulations.

Yes, I'm expressing as we're still having problems bf. Had a c-section and struggled to recover, now have haematoma :-( but feeling a millions times better than I did so not complaining. Going to get help with bf as really want to get it sorted as being attached to a pump wasn't exactly the idea if motherhood I had envisaged ;-)

I agree, it does seem silly waking him as he needs his sleep and we need our rest. We gave him a 'top up' last night but did change his nappy at 10pm and he slept through until 8.30am. Perhaps tonight, we'll try your dream feed suggestion Ducksongrocks but without the nappy change or perhaps, we'll just see how he goes without the last feed and see if he goes through.

Don't worry AnythingNotEverything about potential boast, we have (so far) been extremely fortunate that he has slept through since we bought him home from hospital. I'm sure we'll pay for this luxury at some point!

Thank you both so much once again. Experienced advice is a real help.