Wake babies for feeds

[Lenny1987]

Second baby dropped a lot of weight when first born, and was put in high cal milk by the hospital aged 12 days. We were told to feed every 3 hours. Since then he has set his own routine of feeding every 2 hours in the day. When it comes to 7pm to 8pm he now knows its bedtime and when we wake him he will very seldom take more than an ounce. We continue to wake him but it feels like if we were to leave him to wake himself (which he sometimes does) he would eat more. I also worry i am ruining his sleep as he is never able to have a longer stint, which at 10 weeks he might want. He has gained weight every week since though he is small at 10lb 4 oz.Would you let him sleep until he wakes or continue to wake him? Have no follow up with dietician until end of October, and health visitor has no opinion.

To me 10lbs at 10 weeks isnt that small. My girl was 11lbs at 11 weeks, 7lbs born, and there was no mention of her being too small. She is small in general, but so am I.

Personally, if he is gaining weight and yet not really feeding when you wake him, then I would let him sleep. Once he is feeding well during the day and he continues to gain weight I dont see why he needs to be woken just to have an ounce of milk. But, this is just my opinion. I have no medical background so don't take it as gospel. It is just what I would do.

@SqidgeBum that makes me feel better, every medical professional i meet keeps telling me how tiny he is! I feel very similar to you, and I am feeling conflicted as I have no medical background either. I would never have woken my other baby, but he ate like a horse and was huge, though he didn't sleep either!

I would ask your HV, but generally as long as he is gaining steadily, it's fine to leave him to sleep and to wake when he's hungry. I had to wake my first to feed her every 3 hours for the first month or so. But once she was maintaining steady growth (not dropping centile lines), it was fine to stop. That was once she gained back birth weight around one month and then she stuck to a centile.

I woke my DS to feed him and all hell broke lose and he screamed the place down so I quickly knocked that on the head and feed on demand, which he current is around every 2 1/2 -3 hours.
He lets me know when he's hungry and I don't feel the need to wake him, as for me personally it causes more distress to him and he was so upset I woke him he wouldn't feed anyway!
I'd go with on demand feeding and your baby will soon set themselves their own routine

I think in this situation you need to get some medical advice. Do you have the phone number of the dietitian? Ours is available for quick question over the phone.

Did they find a reason for the large weight loss? It’s unusual in a formula fed baby.

I was advised with both of mine to wake every 3 hours (from the start of one feed to feed to the start of the next) until you get to day 10 and they have regained their weight.

@Lockdownseperation he was breast fed at the time, they said they didn't think my milk supply was enough due to significant loss of blood at birth.

I've tried to call the hospital 3x to speak to the dietician and the hospital tells me she can't be contacted!

That’s rubbish of the dietitian! I struggled with supply with my first after illness.

Parenting is a bit of trial and error. I would maybe just try it and see what happens and keep an eye on his weight.

He's about as heavy as my DD was at 10 weeks - are you fairly tall/large? I'm only 5"2, and although my DD (now 4) looks like she's going to be taller than me (not a surprise as DH is tall) she was only 6lb1 when born and was on the small side until about 5/6 months. This wasn't a source of concern, they only have tiny tummies so you can't expect them to catch weight up all that quickly, and small mummies often seem to have small babies.

Personally, I wouldn't wake him to feed if he's only taking 1oz each time. It's a lot of disruption for you and him for very little milk, and he sounds like he's gaining well enough from his other feeds. Remember, they need sleep as well as food to grow.

If you try it and he doesn't keep up with his current centile line, then you can always go back to waking him.

Your son is not a bad weight for his age. Please don't worry about this, he'll be fine and he needs his sleep.

I stopped waking for feeds once we had steady wait gain after regaining initial loss, I think around 3-4 weeks, I then woke her if it had been 4h for a couple of weeks. She's 8 weeks now and I don't wake her but it is rare she goes much longer than 3h between feeds.

We were in a similar situation (and had to syringe feed DD for a couple of days), but my recollection is that we only woke her for feeds for less than a week. She lost 14% of her birthweight (and she wasn't heavy or chunky when she was born) if that gives you anything to work against; I don't know how much your DS weighs.

We were told not to wake mine once they’d regained their birth weight and generally seemed to be taking in a decent amount in the day and growing. For both I think that was around a month, and they both also had issues with not getting enough breast milk at the beginning and ended up mixed fed. Not that they ever slept more than a few hours at night so I never got to test that anyway.

They’re 3 and 5 now and seem perfectly healthy and both sleep all night most of the time!

@Caterina99 yes I think I've convinced myself that he would sleep all night without me disturbing him, probably entirely untrue! I do long for the sleeping all night you mention though, I dont mind thr baby but my 2 year old is worse!