My 5-week baby is feeding every 2 hour!!!

[missionmumlondon]

Hello my fellow mums, I am a first time mother living in London.

My baby is 5 weeks old. He doesn't sleep through the night. He is feeding about every 2 hours, e.g. 12am, 2am, 4am and 6am etc. My first question is, is it normal? He's gained so much weight and he's pooing and weeding a lot. I'm so knackered from the broken sleep. I thought he was going through a growth spurt, but it's has over two weeks.

My second question is how do you make your baby feed longer on your breast (for the breastfeeding mums)? I want my bubba to feed longer so that I don't have to wake up every two hours.

Thank you! Also this is my first time posting and using mumsnet so please pardon if I've done anything wrong!

@BadToTheBone I long for the day that my baby sleeps from 1am-5am!

It will happen. Try offering continuously leading up to bedtime. Usually they start cluster feeding in the evenings around that age so he may do it for you. The upside of cluster feeding is that they then usually give you a bigger chunk of sleep. And then they hit 4 months....

Just a word of caution with the pumping- it can make things worse. A pump is not as effective as a baby, and doesn't trigger your milk producing hormones in the same way. Night feeds are especially important for stimulating your supply. Especially in a baby so young.

So if your'e skipping night feeds, your body won't increase it's supply as much, as it thinks your body doesn't need it. So your baby feeds more to increase supply, particularly at night.

Short term pumping in the day for your partner to feed at night might give you a break, but longer term it can trap you in a cycle of baby working to up your supply by night feeding, but because you aren't actually feeding, nothing happens.

It's tough, but you could try not pumping for a week, see if it helps the frequent feeding at night.

Yes as others have said, every 2 hours is completely normal. He also sound alike he feeds for a good length of time too! I could barely get mine to feed for more than 5 mins which always worried me. But she gained weight and eventually started sleeping through at 10 months when we sleep trained her

Keep going, you're doing a great job, it'll get easier eventually.

That sounds normal. 12 week mark I got a stretch of 3-4 hours between feeds then maybe 1-2 feeds a night from 5-6 months. Once weaning, they are able to sleep longer. Every baby is different! I was breastfeeding too. Keep going! It gets easier!

Thank you @eternalopt for your encouraging words.

My DD has a baby exactly the same age and is also feeding 2 hourly on an average night. Lots of you out there! It won't last for ever. Sounds like you're doing really well.

They do vary, so it's not unexpected that other people's babies are going longer. But as some people on this thread have mentioned, it could also be worse! What you describe is well within the normal spectrum. It will change - sooner or later, mostly better, occasionally worse. If this is your first you have a reasonable chance of being able to 'sleep when the baby sleeps' to catch up. It's the doing it with a lively toddler around that really hurts!

Skincare I didn't jolt but I was completely confused, I didn't understand what was happening, lol

Mission I won't say he slept every single night from 1-5 but it was a start to it happening occasionally. He's 15 now and would sleep all day if I let him, lol!

The least helpful advice I ever had was to "sleep when the baby sleeps". Was. Not. Possible.
So don't feel pressured by that one either!

Katisha-I agree! I could never sleep during the day.though I went to sleep early in the evening and once got startled by sleeping 8pm to 1am, what a luxury! :)

Sounds really normal OP. There is a massive variation in how babies feed and it does change all the time. One of mine fed mainly every four hours, and I felt it was a bit too lounge between feeds, but he was fine, just at the other end of the norm from my first child!

I would google safe co-sleeping practices. Co-sleeping in itself is not a danger, but the manner in which you do it is important. It makes life with a breastfeeding baby so much easier.

As for 'what were you expecting?' I had no idea what to expect when I had mine! You just find out as you go along.

It will pass .

I never slept when DS did. He would go down at 11 and wake at anywhere between 2 and 4. He'd go back to sleep but I wouldn't and I still struggle now if he wakes.

It does get better. It really does. And as for what were you expecting? Ha!! My niece slept 13 hours when they first took her home, my other niece slept through at ten days and my nephew just didn't sleep. No one knows what to expect - and it's unfair to say that!

Some babies just naturally sleep better than others. Nothing you've done. It's been 4th time lucky for me... she's slept through since 8 weeks and now at 11 is about 8.30 through to 7.30.. the reason I mention this isn't to gloat it's because she's the quickest feeder ever which shows that lengthening the feeds probably won't make any difference. At 5 weeks she was feeding for 5-10 minutes a time and for no more than 2 hours in a 24 hours period. Just grit your teeth and you'll be looking back on the bleak days before you know it.

11 weeks not years lol

I learned as a baby to sleep anytime and anywhere. Came in handy when at home alone with a newborn (husband worked away and parents lived abroad. If I didn't sleep in the daytime I'd have been on my knees in days.)