4 week old will go 3 to 4 1/2 hours between feeds for 1st part of night then every 2 hours or less-any help?

[MissusRabbit]

After getting fab advice about 'lactose overload' i thought i ask again for help

DS can go from a feed at 7pm until after 11pm but then has began waking every 2 hours after that for a feed. Feeds are a bit rubbish as he is sleepy - have tried lights on, nappy changeds, tickling him etc to wake him more to feed but not much is helping.

Last night he work every 2 hours but at 5am fell asleep when i picked him up. After 10mins of trying i gave up and went back to bed. He woke at 6.30 and had a 2 min feed. So really he's waking but not perhaps out of hunger, Is a dummy a bad idea? Do try and settle him every time he wakes or always assume its for hunger??

Wouldn;t mind if he did 2hours up til midnight then 4 1/2 hours after!!

In the day he's feeding 2-3 hourly and i never let him go longer than that.

I have been waiting for him to wake at 10-11pm but is it worth trying a dreamfeed instead?

Anyone get more down baby using EBM in a bottle? His feeds at 6.30 are for 20-30 mins - at night i'm lucky if he does 10mins.

Sounds perfectly normal for a four week old. At this stage I took the baby in bed with me and let him feed without having to get up.

Agree with belgo.

Ds has a similar sleeping patter (still at 4 months) in that his longest uninteruptted stretch of sleep is in the evening when he will sleep for 4 hours. From midnightish onwards it's every 2.5 hours so after the first post-midnight waking I just put him in bed next to me.

Read a bit about safe co-sleeping; not smoking or drinking or taking anything that would make you drowsy are the most important elements as well as ensuring that your ds won't overheat.

Yes, belgo is right. I don't think there's anything you could/should be doing at 4 weeks other than go with the flow. I also used to take her into bed at this stage (following safety guidlines).

She did settle down a bit more at around 7/8 weeks and started sleeping a bit longer at night.

It's such hard work though, I know.

Until this week he was doing around 3 hours at night which i could cope with. Its 2 hourly which is now killing me, plus 2 other dc to cope with.

Is co-sleeping the only way?

Do you all feed on demand or wake your babies to feed if they sleep a certain length of time?

I know, I also have three small children and it has been hard. I think my body has become used to two hourly sleep!

The main thing that helped me was going to bed early evening, at about 8pm, when all children were in bed. If dh was home earlier, then I would hand the older children to him and go to bed at 7pm but mainly my dh works long hours.

I would make sure I got everything done that needed to be done during the day. We lived on easy to make spaghetti bolognese for a while.

Four weeks is very early though and you are still recovering from the birth. It does get easier.

BTW I have never woken a sleeping child for a feed

Both of mine did this, then the first strtch got longer and longer from about 6 weeks onwards. At 8 weekish they would go from 8 until about 2/3 but then still every 2.5 hours after that. Sounds pretty normal to me.

Re waking babies to feed, i woke them in the day if they'd gone 3 hours without a feed( I say "they" I only did this with ds with his mammoth naps, dd fed hourly in the day and struggled to nap, hellish) but never woke them at night. Have never deliberately implemented a dream feed either. I know sereveral mums with babies ds age (7 months) who're struggling to get rid of the dream feed.

If it's any reassurance, DD2 was 4 weeks old yesterday and seems to be pretty much the same as yours - although I was a very lucky person last night as she actually went 5 hours in the evening and then every couple of hours after that!

The one thing keeping me going is that I know this won't last forever and even feels slightly easier this time round.

I don't wake DD2 for a dream feed and I never did with DD1 either.

Thanks for all advice and experiences.

Sounds like a No for the dreamfeed. I did it with DD1 but can't remember at what age...and it was an excuse to get DH to do it so i could go to bed early!

I know 4 weeks is so young and i'm certainly not expecting him to sleep through He just seems to be getting worse at sleeping not better.

Hi why are you not letting him go longer than 2-3 hours for a feed in the day? I have a 2 week old little boy and he usually goes about 4 hours between each feed during the day, and about the same at night sometimes a bit longer. Maybe if he gets used to having bigger feeds he will last longer before the next instead of just waking up for a top up? I have given my DS a dummy, which sometimes help him nod off again, and I try that first if he is not due a feed.

I read lots of places that as a newborn they need to feed around 10 times in 24hrs to build up your milk supply. So if he's not woken in the day then i can't fit in many feeds. (I also let DS1 sleep as long as he wanted and he'd be up ALL night feeding but not feed in the day so don't want to repeat that!!!)

I don't always have to wake him, he's often ready for a feed himself after 2-3 hours also.

He has a big feed at 6.30/7pm yet also feeds at 4/5pm too the time in between then doesn't seem to affect him.

I don't wake DS2 (4 weeks) to feed, I did with DS1 and it screwed up what was a perfectly happy arrangement.

He gets woken up enough through the day because I have to run around after DS1 so, from about 7ish I try to let him be if he is sleeping.

DS2 is still feeding every 2 hours or so. He is in a moses basket right next to me in bed so I don't really have to wake up to feed him. I don't turn on the light unless he has done a poo and needs a change when I turn the dimmer on just enough to see, I don't bother changing him if hasn't pooed, and I often go back to sleep with him on the breast.

I wish I had been this relaxed with my first, my life could have been a whole lot easier!

Some babies need smaller feeds every 2 hours and some can go longer. My dd never went long between day time feeds but she always put lots of weight on so I didn't worry about it. I didn't wake her if she slept longer.

My understanding of demand feeding is to trust them to know when they need to be fed and to respond to that. Obviously whilst keeping an eye on their weight. It worked for us, in terms of dd's wellbeing anyway, although I was knackered!

Ooh, MissusRabbit, you could be describing my DD with that overnight feeding pattern! I call it "diminishing sleep returns". 4.5 hours, then 3, then 2, then 2...

My DD is almost 13 weeks and this has been a consistent pattern for the last three or four weeks now.

She resettles very quickly (usually) and even with a nappy change, the longest she's awake is an hour, usually it's half an hour or less. Trouble is, it takes me longer to get back to sleep than her, so I'm only managing around 5 hours a night. Mind you, that's okay, I can function on that.

I'm finding the best thing to do is try and get my own head down by 2200 - the 1-2 hours of sleep I can grab before midnight make a huge difference to how I feel the next day.

Although my DD is older than your baby (congrats, btw!) she is still a shade under 10lb as she was a bit premature and small, so in reality, she is still only the size of a large newborn. With that in mind, I'm putting up with the feeding pattern for now - when she gets to 14lbs (a friend told me that was the "golden weight" when they are more likely to start to sleep through) I will reassess the situation, but for now I figure she needs the nourishment and demand feeding is demand feeding.

So, to sum up, try and grab what sleep you can, especially during her longer stretch and remember - it'll soon pass and you're not alone in this! Good luck.

Oh this is great - I have posted a thread under sleeping re: this topic - my baby is 3 weeks old. Once we had got into the swing of things wth feeds, she was waking every 3-4 hours and feeding for 1-2 hours. By week 2 this had dropped to feeds of 30 mins-1 hour every 3-4 hours. This week she has started feeding for much less time - sometimes only for 5 minutes. Even changing her nappy and strippinger her off will not encourage her to feed longer. I am assuming that she is getting more milk in a shorter time? She had gained weight (from 7lbs 9 oz to 8 lbs 5 oz in 6 days) when she was last weighed so I am hoping that when she is weighed tomorrow she will have gained again. Today she has been feeding alot for 5 minutes at a time - sometimes as often as every 30 minutes.

Re: overnight feeding. My midwives said that its ok to allow a newborn to sleep for up to 6 hours without a feed during the night and 4 hours during the day - as yet I have not had to wake up my baby as she has always woken before those times!

Re: waking babies up for feeds - how do you get a rotine if you dont waken them at set times? Or have mums found that a routine comes naturally without having to do this? Any feedback would be great!

Congratulations, haverina!

TBH 3 weeks is a bit young to start worrying about routines - you will find your baby will start settling into a routine of her own before long, but I wouldn't concern yourself about trying to get her into a predictable pattern for the moment. If it helps, keep a diary of her sleeping/waking/feed times and you'll probably notice a pattern emerging soon enough.

My DD varies with lengths of feeds - at the moment, it's rare she'll go longer than ten minutes, usually much less. She tends to feed every 2-3 hours during the day and as detailed above at night. Like you, I sometimes worry that she's just snacking and like you, I can't encourage her to take more if she's had enough, even with feet/hand/ear tickling, re-latching, boob-switching etc. I reckon if my DD is alert, doing a good number of wet and pooey nappies and putting on weight (yes to all), then she is having what she needs when she needs it. I guess it's the same with your DD.

Sounds like your DD's weight gain is good and yes - they do go through phases of doing loads of feeding, but I wouldn't let it worry you.

And Let Sleeping Babies Lie is the general advice, unless you are having to be proactive with a newborn who isn't thriving - definitely NOT the case for yours, so if she's sleeping, I would let her do so until she's ready to feed.

Yours, in solidarity!

So not just me then

"diminshing returns" is spot on!!! And who are these lucky people who get babies that sleep for 6hours or more DS1 took 20 months to sleep that long!!!!!!!!!!

Well i went against all the advice on here and had a better night. DS2 fed at 6.45pm, dreamfeed at 10pm, fed at 1.15am, 3am then 6am. So i was quite happy with that, all short feeds too - other kids are up at 6am anyway. I can't handle staying up much after 10pm myself even without a baby, and if i go to bed and get woken soon after i feel absolutely awful!

SO will try again tonight and see. Anything is worth a try!!!

Let me know how you both get on x

How on earth do you do a dreamfeed? If I try to feed DS2 while he is sleeping, he is all BUGGER OFF.

Morloth, I'm very shocked at your baby's language (!)

My mum tells me my first word was "bugger".

MR our awakenings last night were: 22.50, 02.45, 04.45, 0700... allow for the one-hour time difference (I'm in Spain) and we're almost tandem...!

Morloth - it didn;t work the first night and the 2nd i sat with my boob in his mouth for about 5 mins before he started to feed.

i'd rather be in spain though