Newborn feeding schedule

Starfish113

For some reason I have a lot of questions today! May just be boredom while I'm waiting for DH to come home from work...

How long do you stick to the eating every 2 hour schedule? When I saw the pedi at her first check-up, she said that's how often she should be eating. But she was less than a week old then. Right now, I wake her up every 2 hours during the day to eat (when she's awake, she's pretty much hungry every 2 hours on the dot), and she goes about 3-4 hours at night. I guess I'm just wondering if I should be waking her to eat during the day, or if she will wake on her own when she's hungry? Thanks ladies

gingerfamily

Up until 4 weeks I was waking her during the day to eat.  I much rathered waking her during the day and letting her sleep longer and night. 

 

Starfish113

mrsh0606:

Up until 4 weeks I was waking her during the day to eat.  I much rathered waking her during the day and letting her sleep longer and night. 

 

that's my thinking too! just wanted to make sure i wasn't feeding too much or something... thanks 1ht

gingerfamily

nope, it's really kind of hard to overfeed a baby.  If you are - they'll spit up to tell you.  GL!

ChristinaD09

My pedi made me wake him every 2-3 hours the whole first month, day and night.  At one month, he said I could go to 4 hours/night, but still 2-3 during the day.  But we had weight gain issues the first week (though by week 2 he was gaining a ton and the pedi knew that), and was premature. 

By about week 5, I had given up on waking him every 4 hours at night and just let him sleep, because he was finally starting to wake on his own (so I switched over when he started waking on his own).  He'll go maybe 5 hours, max, now (in between feedings, and he eats for an hour, so that's 4 hours of sleep for him, and about 3.5 for me)

I personally think the switch should be made when the baby wakes on his own.  I would still wake every 3 hours during the day if he isn't waking up on his own, though (and I do it at the late evening feed so I can go to bed finally instead of having him wake me up in another hour). 

By the way, we always did 3 hours from week 2 on (day and night) and he gained really well.  Frankly every 2 hours is HARD on you (I know I was only getting like 20 minutes of rest with an every 2 hour schedule)--if the baby isn't waking on its own, I would switch to every 3.  Though I think you had mentioned before that your baby only eats for 10 minutes?  Is that 10 minutes per side?  I might stick with an every 2 hours for now if the baby doesn't eat for very long.

DaisyFull

We got the OK at our 2-week appointment to stop waking her up to eat. Now during the day she wants to eat about every 2-3 hours, and at night she'll go 4-5 hours. (At 1 month old).

araevg

I never let her go longer than 3 hours without eating for the first month. After that, I let her choose her own schedule.

abb08

Our pediatrician and LC both said that the main thing is that LO is eating about 10 times a day.  Our LO will easily sleep a 4 hour stretch during the night and even if I try to wake him earlier, he's difficult to wake until he gets to that point.  I finally decided to just let him sleep, because even with that he is eating very well the rest of the time and getting in his 10 times.  He's also having plenty of dirty and wet diapers.