Waking your baby during the night to feed

[bouncingblob]

We recently had an antenatal class in which the midwives said you should be waking your baby every 2-3 hours during the night for a feed.

We asked how long this was to continue for and they said at LEAST six months!

Can this really be true? Obviously if they wake up themselves then you feed them, but the midwives said if they didn't wake up, you had to wake them up and make them feed.

No, you shouldn’t. This is bonkers advice, but probably something mothers would have been advised in the 80s. Some, er, older antenatal teachers and health visitors do just spout information from when they first trained back in the dark ages though.

The only time you should wake a baby for a feed is if you have been medically advised to do so because of weight gain issues. With my first, she was born early and was at risk of failure to thrive. We had to wake her for a feed every 3 hours for the first month.

That said, many babies will wake for a feed every 2-3 hours (or every 1.5 hours ime), but if they don’t, you don’t need to wake them, unless above.

Bonkers. Like the previous poster, I did have a tiny baby so had to wake them. All the professionals were clear (and apologetic 😆) that this was unusual and only because of his weight.

I think for the first couple of months babies do need to feed through the night. Most wake themselves but I wouldn’t let a newborn go more than 5 hours without a feed. You will get people that had babies that slept through from the start but I don’t think that’s necessarily healthy when they are first born.

I did have to wake my second for feeds for the first few days as she was induced and small and just slept the entire time. After that she work up herself.

My first woke every 1-2 hours for a feed with no prompting 😫

6 months is madness.

Only time I had to do this was because of poor weight gain when my second was a newborn (I was breastfeeding) and I only needed to do it a couple of weeks until the weight gain picked up. By 9 weeks she was sleeping 5-6 hour chunks at night and gaining just fine. As far as I know, slow or poor weight gain is the only reason you'd need to do this. I didn't need to with my first either.

Wouldn’t wake a baby unless it was very tiny and not eating.
I found writing down feeds very helpful to look for a pattern and then I was able to adjust it slightly when she was a few months old.
But generally they feed when they want to feed. I knew someone whose baby slept through from birth, they actually started waking a few months in for food as they probably needed it then.

I had to do this when DS was BF and wasn't gaining weight well. He was massive when born and wasn't maintaining the weight centile. HV told me to keep going (don't stop BF) and wake every 2 hours to feed and it was absolutely exhausting. This went on for a few months until his weight was back up.

No way I would have done that voluntarily if I hadn't been told explicitly too.

You don’t wake a sleeping baby 😂

At first DD for the first few nights slept 2.5/3 hours and would wake up in their own to be fed. Then one night they slept for 6 hours!! In a panic (because I was also told the same advise) woke them for a nappy change and feed, feeling awful that I had let them sleep for so long. Next day we go for the baby check up with our midwife, tell them about the long sleep and the first thing they said was "that's amazing!!" So I definitely get where you're coming from about mixed advice.

I think it's mainly to do with maintaining and helping them gain weight that they push the every couple of hours rule, but tbh my little one and every other baby I've been told about by their mum's are pretty good at letting us know when they're hungry anyway.

My midwife even assured me that in our case anyway, the baby would wake us when they needed feeding and changing etc. We've been letting them sleep for as long as they've needed and it's not done any harm. Still gaining weight and feeds at least two times in the night.

Did she mistakenly say months and mean weeks? Otherwise, agreed - bonkers😂
Wouldn't be unreasonable to wake a breastfed baby in first 6 weeks while supply is still establishing (most will wake anyway😅). But after that - let sleeping babies lie!!

Errr no this sounds mad!

I was told to wake DS2 up to feed because he was slow to gain weight. But if they are gaining weight normally, have got back up to birth weight etc then never wake a sleeping baby!!

And I don't think it's 80s advice. I have no idea where it's come from.

Surely in the 80s they were saying 4-hourly feeds and if they slept overnight then leave them to it!

Madness. I had to wake DC1 for the first few nights because he had been really sleepy with low glucose at birth and needed encouragement to feed. But only till he'd regained his birthweight. By then he was waking up anyway.

DC2 I never woke up to feed.

Never changed a nappy in the night either unless it was a poo.

Only if directed to by a medical professional due to failure to thrive.
Bonkers otherwise. You need your sleep.
Both of mine were / are rubbish sleepers and short of an emergency id go mental at anyone waking them up when I'm trying to catch up on sleep 😂.
Newborns wake loads in the night- you shouldn't need to wake them.

Some lucky people have babies that sleep through the night from 3 months old. not jealous😂

No, definitely no need to do that. Unless it's for like 10 hours!

I’ve never once woken either of mine to feed. Tbf both nearly broke me with sleep deprivation until around 18 months so not something I ever had to consider.

i guess the only time would be if the baby is dropping off its centiles but even then I would get advice from the HV

I was advised and followed this as my kids had jaundice and followed it until the jaundice had cleared.
they all actually slept through the night by 6/7 weeks. Nothing I had done. Just luck x

I had two babies - one I did wake in the night to feed as he wasn't gaining weight.

My second bed really well in the day so I didn't wake him and he would do 4/5 hour stretches as a baby.

You will get in a pattern. One thing I did keep going with was the 10pm feed and I would dream feed for this one and at about 6/7 months after the 10pm feed he would largely go through the night after.

My youngest would sleep for 6 hours straight a time from 6 weeks, which was amazing as his older brother woke every 2-3 hours until 18 months.
I would put him down whilst I bathed the older one and he'd drop straight off. I'd wake him for a feed when I was ready for bed and then he'd sleep for 6 hours. After that he'd wake for a feed and drop off until it was time for everyone to get up.

I wouldn't deliberately wake a sleeping baby apart from for a feed before I went to sleep. I want to encourage them to sleep as long as possible over night.

Mine were all breastfed and all woke every two hours for the first six months to be fed. I never woke them up to feed them. I never got the chance!
My friends who bottle fed all had much longer gaps between feeds from very early on.

I was told to wake every 3 hours timed from the start of the previous feed until they regained the birth weight or if they still had any jaundice until that cleared. Then only to wake to feed if they had issues gaining weight or were unwell.

Noooooo never wake a sleeping baby!
TBH both of mine never slept for that long anyway for the first 6 months - 1 year.

I really don’t get this advice to wake them, unless they aren’t gaining weight. Other than that if they are hungry, cold or need a nappy change they’ll soon wake up and tell you.

I had to do this for both of mine because they didn’t gain their birth weight back quickly enough and dropped centiles, or something like that. I had low supply at the start so that was probably part of the reason.

But it was only for a few weeks. Once the midwife was happy with them then I was told to just let them sleep and feed when hungry (sadly that was every few hours anyway, but I didn’t wake them up!)

We were told this when I had my first 26 years ago. I never did, because it went against my instincts. One person in my anti natal group set an alarm and woke her breast fed baby to feed every four hours. I thought she was bonkers for many reasons, and this was only one. If a baby isn't putting on weight I can understand the advice, but my own greedy babies never needed to be woken. They needed to learn night from day.