When to drop to 3 meals a day

[newpupworries]

Hi all, we have a 13 week old Labrador puppy who's getting in to a really good routine. We have been feeding him 4 times per day since we got him 4 weeks ago but think I should maybe be dropping him to 3 times but not sure how necessary this is. Most of his food is hand fed as we use the time to train him and about a third of each meal is given in a Kong or lickimat to slow him down (or buy us some time when we're eating etc). As it's going well I'm reluctant to upset things but just wondering what people's 3 times a day routine looks like and what times they feed their pups please? I'm mainly worried about the gap between last meal and bedtime as currently his last meal is at just before 8 - he sleeps well and I give him a bedtime snack (otherwise he's sick in the early hours) thanks

I don't think we dropped to 3 meals a day until 16 weeks/4 months with our lab.

I’d condense the middle 2 into 1... halfway between the other two. Then when I’m dropping to 2 I just drop the middle one.

So 3 meals, I’d do 8ish (cause that’s when I get up) 2ish and 9ish.

But it’s not necessary as such, like, if your current routine is working for you both, you don’t have to change it. I find they start not being as interested in a meal, that’s when you drop one.

I drop to 3 meals at 12 weeks (like you though I use all food for training)

So just slightly bigger meals but same quantity.

If you are happy with 4 stick with 4 it wont matter at all.

We were advised 16 weeks by vet and breeder (border terrier)

Thanks all for the advice, that's really helpful. Might start to gradually merge the two middle meals into one over the next few weeks and keep up the hand feeding etc.

I changed down about three months. He was fed at 6.30, midday and 5.30.