How often should I feed my ebf 3 week old?

[Jellywellyfish]

My daughter has just turned three weeks. She’s EBF and her weight is very healthy and she feeds well. I just wondered at three weeks how long should I let her go between feeds? I am feeding on demand, but up until now I would not usually let her go more than 4 hours without a feed and so if she hasn’t woken up to want to feed I will stir her to feed. She will always feed when I do this.

The midwife told me at the start to feed every 3/4 hours but not let her go more than 5/6 hours without a feed. I just wondered if I should continue to on demand feed (or every 3/4 hours) at three weeks or should I let her sleep a bit longer now? I don’t have an appointment with the HV until end of Feb so looking for some interim advice.

I suppose I’m largely asking because occasionally I think if I left her to let me know when she wanted feeding she may go 6 hours without waking. I don’t want to be disturbing her precious sleep if I shouldn’t be but also don’t want to let her go too long between feeds.

Many thanks!

As long as she’s regained birth weight you can let her go longer in the night, I wouldn’t go longer than 3/4 hours in the day xx

I don't know about now but it used to be 4 hourly unless they wanted it sooner.
DS would sleep through the night from 6 weeks so I'd wake him up once and he'd drink a bit more during the day.

I would try and feed more during the day in the hopes she sleeps better at night!

10-12 feeds in 24 hours, responsive feeding (when she’s hungry, when she needs comfort, when your boobs need her to feed!). She will get into her own rhythm but it’s normal not to have a specific routine. She may be one of these magic babies that doesn’t do so many feeds but it sounds like you’re doing fine :)

You can let her sleep as long as she wants at night. I'd offer a feed if you notice it's been more than 4h in the day, but she's unlikely to wait this long to ask!

I never woke mine to feed, so she regularly went more than 6 hours from early on.

She did feed constantly during the day though!

If they're healthy and gaining weight, no health issues then it's fine to leave them - they'll let you know when they're hungry and they regulate over 24hrs. I'm incredibly jealous reading this. 6 hours? At 3 weeks? I had 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep for the first time since DS was born just after Xmas when he was 9 months old!

I always just took it as a rough guide. I've never paid any attention to how long my baby goes between feeds. He just feeds when he wants. I certainly don't wake him at night! The horror!