Waking to feed?

[Sweetk0987poiu]

This might sound really silly but LO is 6 weeks this week, we was told in hospital to not let a baby go more than 4 hours feeding. There has been times he could sleep through but never let him with this advice. My mum thinks this is absurd and when I’ve tried to find advice about it online I can’t find it so I’m thinking it’s not a thing?

I would only do this if baby has weight issues.

It’s only a thing for the first two weeks for a full term baby doing fine weight-wise.

If baby was full term, has regained their birth weight and is continuing to gain weight steadily then you’re fine to stop. With DD I did it for 10 days, with DS he never actually lost any weight after birth so the first community midwife we saw on day 5 gave me the ok to stop! I found they both woke for a feed around the 5 hour mark until about 6 weeks then they gradually started pushing longer.

Thanks everyone 😄

I’d definitely leave unless you’re concerned about weight. I was waking my EBF baby every 2 hours at that age because she was a tiny birth weight and struggling to gain but my friend with a baby the same age was sleeping through in over 8 hour stretches.

Great question @Sweetk0987poiu

My girl is 9 days old and is currently sleeping on my chest. I got her out her cot to feed but she clearly isn't that bothered.

She was weighed on day 5 and only lost 3% weight and was a low risk, full term baby.

Not sure how much I should be bothering her to wake her up enough to feed... She's breastfed.

I had this advice too and baby is also turning 6 weeks!

I thought it was also linked to establishing supply/ preventing mastitis as well as their hunger.

My ds was very small at birth despite being late 2nd percentile for his gestation and was admitted to nicu with an infection. We were advised to wake every 3 hrs. We kept that going for the first month. He soon caught up and was 75th percentile by 5 months. I would've have bothered doing it without weight concerns. My advice would be to keep it up during the day and make the most of the longer sleeps at night now. Sleep can go absolutely insane for periods between 4 and 12 months. Get some in while you can I reckon.