3 month old still nursing every hour and a half...is this normal?

cyn42797

I'm not sure what to do. My 3 month old still nurses every hour or hour and a half. She only eats for about 8-10 min and then pulls off or falls asleep. I try to wake her up or get her to take it again but it doesn't work. She does sleep 7-8 hours at night so I'm not sure if that's why she needs to eat so often during the day. Shouldn't she be lasting longer between feedings?

vvvvvfee

it sounds normal to me. you could try to rouse your LO a little by putting a wet washcloth on her forehead or tickling her feet to wake her up. that might help consolidate her nursing sessions a little. but you are pretty lucky she is already sleeping for  8 hours at night! personally,  i go by "watch the baby, not the clock." some babies are "snackers" and prefer to have lots of shorter nursing sessions. she needs to make up for what she's not getting overnight, like you said.

if we're saying she's nursing an average of 8 times a day and only 16 hours to do it in, then that's about every 2 hours (but remember you're supposed to count from the END of the last feeding to the beginning of the next one).  edit: meant to say start of the last feeding to the start of the next one.

vvvvvfee

thanks @theresat858- that was what i intended to say, but i garbled it.

cyn42797

Thank you! That helps a lot. I really appreciate your responses.

CNYBride05

There's really very few "shoulds" when it comes to babies . My girls are 10.5 months old and sometimes nursing every 1.5 hrs. It depends how much they take in a given feeding but also they get in the habit of nursing more than they might physically need to. I KNOW my girls don't need to nurse as often as they do and they can go much longer stretches if we are out and about or when they are at daycare.