Feed on demand or every 3 hours?

[chloem93]

Hi, ftm here.

My daughter is 2 weeks old and was born 7lbs 10, when she was last weighed she gained 3 ounces and only lost one ounce straight after birth which midwife said was good, so she's a healthy weight.
Anyway, I was feeding every 3 hours and keeping to a strict schedule where I'd even wake her for a feed but I've had the health visitor round and she said I should feed on demand instead...which is the complete opposite to what the midwifes have told me! So now I'm confused, if she doesn't wake and demand feeding, do I just let her sleep? Today she fed at 2-3pm (90ml of formula) and then went to sleep, she woke at 7pm and had another 90ml. When I was sticking to every 2-3 hours, she was on 60ml but I chose to increase to 90 as she was always hungry for more at the end of feeds. Plus I was feeding her hungrier baby formula but decided two days ago to go back to first (cow and gate) as she seemed to be getting constipated... she still gets constipated often.
So should I be letting her sleep for 5-6 hours without feeds or waking her at 3? I'm still a little confused how much she should be feeding, it doesn't help I get different information from different people and when I look online for info, one page says every 3 hours and the next it says feed on demand. I don't want her to not get enough and drop weight but I always get told by my mother to 'not wake a sleeping baby.'
Also is it normal for a 2 week old to sleep for that long and not want a feed? I will ask the midwife on Sunday for more clarification but I'm sure I'll be told different info again

We are a feed on demand household here too. My LO was a hungry hippo and could quite happily have boob all day, sleep 8 hours at night (even early on) then wake demanding boob in the early hours before sleeping another 2. She let me know when she needed more after a nap, I never needed to wake her even as a newborn.

Both!
We fed on demand, but she usually wanted food every 2.5-3.5 hours. If during the day, it was getting on a bit, then we'd offer. At night we were fully baby led.

We fed on demand until my son was 5 weeks old, then switched to three hourly feeds (didn’t wake him up in the night). It was brilliant. He was like clockwork and immediately started sleeping for longer. He stayed on that schedule til he was about eight months old. I would 100% do it that way again.

I always feed on demand but luckily my little girl is like clockwork most days and feeds every 4 hours. At night she sometimes goes 6 hours. I never wake her though

If baby is gaining weight you don't need to wake her up to feed (as long as it's within 6 hours).

I would say on demand... I tried to schedule feeds and I got mastitis - obviously worst case scenario, though!

Feed on demand but if she sleeps longer than 4 hours I would wake her.

My nearly 16 year old daughter wants to stay over at an apartment with all her friends on Friday night. She is very responsible and mature for her age but I have said she can’t go. She says if anything is to happen she can easily get a taxi home and get herself out the situation, however I’m not okay with her staying where there is no adult supervision. She says i am just a phone call away and she is with everyone she knows so she’ll be safe. Should I let her stay over or not?

Start your own thread please

I fed every 3/4 hours, never really did on demand and never had any cluster feeding. DD is just about to turn 1.

I had my two in the era when 3 or 4 hourly feeding - 3 for smaller full term babies - was the 'rule'. They were BF, and except for the first couple of weeks with no. 2 (every 2 hours at first) it worked fine. Numer one was quite happy with 4 hourly from the beginning. 6, 10, 2, 6, 10, 2 - 2 am feed dropped at about 6 weeks.
They would feed enough to be full, and then mostly sleep between feeds, at least for the first couple of months.
I dare say this was one reason why I never had any trouble with sore nipples, and never found it too exhausting.

I know it goes right against the Breastapo rules nowadays, but masses of babies a generation ago thrived just as well with this schedule, as any endlessly-feeding babies now.

I’ve always fed on demand, but I’ve never had a baby who has gone longer than 3 hours without ‘demanding’ until about 4 months old so the concept of waking to feed seems entirely alien to me!

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER just out of interest what did you do if they were hungry more often than every 4 hours? If I fed my 5 day old 4 hourly he’d be screaming with hunger for at least 2 of those hours.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER yes I'm curious too. What did you do if your baby cried and was rooting at 8am? (my mil tells me that I should feed for 15 mins left breast, 15 from the right then no feeds for 4 hours. This wouldn't work for my 2 week old).

If they cried I'd feed them - I never could leave a baby to cry - but as I said, no. 1 was quite happy with the 4 hours, no. 2 was 2 hourly at first, then settled into the more or less 4 hourly schedule.
Maybe I was just lucky - I didn't have 'criers'.

My mother used to say that if you fill them up, they sleep - but maybe she was just lucky with us, too. And IIRC she bottle fed, which I know can be easier from a filling-up POV.

So if they were only hungry every 4 hours, is that not feeding on demand? If mine were only hungry every 4 hours I’d only feed them every 4 hours, of course.

I read this with interest. I BF for the first 2 weeks and was also told to feed every 3 hours - this always meant waking up my DD as she slept a lot during the day

Once she was onto formula, I was told to feed on demand but not to let her go more than 5 hours. Now that she is 9 weeks and has put on a good amount of weight, I’m generally a bit more relaxed about clock watching but I still have 3 hours in my head - I think it was just drummed into me in the first weeks when I was so anxious about BF. To be honest, DD seems to have fallen into her own wee pattern of wanting fed every 3 hours now, 4 at a push. I have woken her up during the day on the rare occasions that it’s gotten to 4.5 hours. I’d be happy to go 5-6 hours between feeds at night to get some more sleep but DD not playing ball on that, the longest she will go at night is 4 hours. I have some friends that are still be woken up every hour or 2 (EBF I believe) so I know I can’t complain too much although I’m envious of the people who have babies that sleep through!