Waking babies to feed

[elliej83]

At the hospital we were told we should be waking our little fella up every 4 hours to feed him in the night.
I wondered at what point we stop doing this as I'm waking him up most nights at the moment and he's really tough to settle again afterwards.

If his weight gain is good, there is no need to do this.

However if baby has not regained his birth weight, is very tiny or premature, or is dropping centiles then not having longer than 4 hours between feeds would be important. This is especially true for breastfed babies.

I agree with fate .
It depends on his weight gain

I did this for the first two weeks - except I was told to wake every 2/3 hours. then I kind of increased the time I allowed him to go, and then after about 4 weeks I just let him sleep as late as he wanted.

But he had regained his birth weight

I think it depends on the circumstances - my DD was 6 weeks early so we had to wake her every 3 hours in the hospital to feed. She was in hospital for a week and we continued to do this for maybe another 3-4 weeks. She then woke naturally about every 4hrs or so wanting fed until she was approx 8 weeks. She currently sleeps through to the morning and we don't wake her during the night anymore but her weight gain has been fine and so is her appetite during the day.

I do think 8-10hrs at night is too long for a little baby to go without food but give it a few weeks and they'll soon let you know when they want fed.