Lost weight - 3 hourly feeds. When do they become more alert?

[bananasinabowl]

My child has lost 10.8% of weight on day 6. She was a sleepy child and I stupidly didn’t know that I had to wake her to feed.

Now midwife wants to wake her 3 hourly, feed her both breasts and top up too.

My other child, I never had to wake. He always wanted feeding so this is new to me.

When do I have to stop doing this? When will she become more alert and I don’t have to worry about being “sleepy” or do I have to always wake her up every 3 hours for a few months?

Thank you

Does she have jaundice? Mine did and was pretty sleepy for the first two weeks. She became more alert then but I would still have to wake her for feeds occasionally. I think she would wake more reliably for food after about a month. Is your little one taking an ok amount each time? Plenty of wet nappies?

Maybe when she is eating more and more regularly. That's not me trying to be snippy - my DD was sleepy (only daytime!) At first and had tongue tie so would give up on the boob pretty quickly and fall asleep.

He's now a complete unit and perfectly alert. Don't beat yourself up.

Are you EBF’ing? When my son was little it was recommended to feed at smaller intervals, and always offer both breasts. 3 hours IMO is too long a stretch for a breastfed baby unless you have a stupendous milk supply. Try every 1-2 hours instead? This will also up your milk supply.

My daughter was born during a heat wave and didn't wake for feeds for the first week at least we had to strip her down to her nappy for every feed - every 3h day and night.
She lost 5% at day 5 and gained half of that by day 10 and the rest by day 15. We kept up the 3h feeds during the day until day 15 this was the maximum she went between feeds, day by day she started to feed on demand more around day 15 she was nearly completely fed on demand. We did a few extra days with 3h alarms over night then 4h but this was unnecessary as she was waking every 3h for a feed by this point.

I would keep with 2-3hly day time feeds until they are gaining weight and 3hly overnight until they are back or close to birth weight.