Do you feed baby in the night if not crying (grunting only)?

[Needallthesleep]

Hi,

I have a two week old baby. She’s a very content soul most of the time and barely cries. She regained her birth weight by day 8, and has continued to gain weight since. Breastfeeding is going well for us (a huge surprise as I completely failed at it with my first baby).

She currently sleeps next to me in a Moses basket. She has a pattern of feeding for 1.5 hours (very slowly), then sleeping for 1.5 hours. But she doesn’t cry for a feed, just starts grunting/tossing and turning. So I get her up and feed her. Her eyes aren’t open when she’s grunting.

I am starting to think I should wait for her to cry and not just automatically feed her when she starts grunting. Is that the right thing to do? Or should I just respond to the grunting? She’s swaddled in a gro bag so I can’t tell if she’s making movements to indicate hunger.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Well done for being so responsive to her needs! It sounds like you’ve been doing a great job thus far. If she’s over her birthweight and still gaining well, you can maybe wait and see what happens if you leave her for a little bit.

I would be inclined to feed at the first sign (ie grunting) during the day. But at night wait for a full cry if you can, to space night feeds out.

I feed him when I hear he's awake (grunting, snuffling) but not yet crying. I find we both go back to sleep easier that way, whereas if he's worked himself up to crying he takes a lot more settling.

Better to feed as you are doing at the first sign. Rooting and little noises are early hunger, better latching and happier baby and easier for baby and you to go back to sleep. Crying is late hunger - more likely to struggle with latch, cortisol for them and less easy to get back to sleep for both of you. There was a study which showed the quicker babies are responded to the less they cry at the 6 month mark.

It sounds like you are doing an amazing job