4 day old - should I wake her for feeds?

[babsie007]

I am currently bottle feeding and dd wouldn't latch (midwife said my nipples were flat and were making it difficult for her).

She is such a good sleeper - she will sleep for maybe 6 hours at a time. Should I be waking her for feeds? What's your experience of this?

Midwife at hospital said she needed to be fed every 3-4 hours. HV said to only feed on demand. Problem is, she only wakes once through the night!!!

As she is so young I would wake her for feeds at least 3/4 hourly during the day. Sometimes babies dont demand the amount of feeds they should so you have to wake them and make sure they take enough.

With DD2 I was instructed to feed her every 3 hours. Unfortunately sometimes my need for sleep overrode everything and I turned off my alarm without waking!

Have you considered looking at how much the formula box says the baby should be taking in 24 hours? If she is taking enough, let her sleep. If not, I would wake her.

Hmm, 6 hours is quite a long time at 4 days old - I would be inclined to wake after 3 hrs for a feed.

The formula says to be feeding her 90ml each feed, across 6 feeds per day. Hospital midwife told me 20ml across 8 feeds per day (every 3 hours).

She is taking 90ml at each feed but I would say she does have that, but goes longer on a night time and sometimes she would maybe only have 5 feeds, and sleeping through a 7 hour period of a night time.

Congrats on your baby!! I also had a very sleepy baby (which on one hand is awesome!) but I wouldn't leave more than 4hrs between feeds, I was advised this by the midwife and health professionals. I was in hospital for 5 days and was advised to feed every 4 hrs minimum. Sometimes babies can be super sleepy depending on what type of pain relief you had.

But once they are a few weeks old you could maybe stretch it to 5hrs and see how you go, my LO started to wake after 4hrs, now at 8 week she sleeps minimum 6 hrs.

Battle on through for a couple of weeks for sure, it'll be worth it :)

Congrats again!

Thanks Janie! I am feeding her every 4 hours now and seems to be going well. She gets a feed at 2am and then another at 6 so that fits well with my schedule. I do think in going to have to up her formula amount though and she's starting to become a little greedy guts!

4 hours is a long time at that age. Could you give smaller feeds more often (not as small as 20mls though as that isnt even 1oz)? Mine only went a max of 2 hours between feeds at that age.

I was told to wake them every 3 hrs and at nite no more than 4 as they need it to keep hydrated etc. I did this until at least 4 weeks when she started to gain weight really well

At the risk of offending.... The chief stimulation for BF is the areola (the dark bit around the nipple) not the nipple, so having flat nipples shouldn't automatically rule out BF: if it's something you want to try, it might be worth having another go with someone else helping with your latch...

In any event - wake her. She's still so tiny. Feed on demand unless she goes longer than 3/4hrs, in which case wake her.

Congratulations :)

Hey babsie, how are you getting on? Hope things are going ok.

I just realised I previously posted4hrs minimum! I meant maximum but hopefully you realised that!

Hope your little one is being kind and that you're managing ok

Xx

Hi Janie, I have stuck with the bottles and it seems to be working well! She is starting to become less sleepy and more hungry, with longer periods of being alert (during the day and night time!!).

Yesterday she seemed to be very hungry so I didn't have to wake her at all to feed. Through the night she was quite restless but didn't want to feed as much - I just need to figure out what else is making her fussy and how to satisfy her xx