Getting from 3hrs - 4hrs for daytime feedings?

jamie217

At what age were your little ones able to make 4hrs?  Did it happen naturally or did you ease them into it? We just started trying to push it back the past couple days and it's hard, my girls are screamers at times, so it makes it hard to go the extra 10-15 mins at times to push it back. 

Our pedi says  by 4 months they do not need a bottle at night, so I'm trying to ease into, esp since I go back to when they are 4 1/2 months.  My DH works nights so I have to get up with them on my own and would like to even cut it down to one night feeding rather than 2 by then. 

lnle

I don't know. Mine still eat anywhere from every 2.5-4 hours. We haven't purposely tried to push them to go longer, but they are still getting up at night, so we're trying to figure out a better feeding routine. I just can't get them to eat big enough bottles during the day, so they're still hungry at night.

I'm not an expert, but I think at 2 months old they might still need to eat every 2-3 hours. 

good luck!

benkari

I kept on the 3 hr schedule until they were almost a year old and went to 3 meals and a snack per day.  I planned on moving them to 4 hour feeds but our neonatologist said by feeding them every 3 hrs during the day they would sleep longer at night.  Sure enough they were sleeping 8+ hours @ 4 months(2 months adjusted)

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mine were on a 3-hour schedule until they were eating lots of table food - so up until about a year old..... we followed babywise and it even says not to try and push to a 4-hour schedule..... the few times we DID go 4 hours - the boys slept badly that night- so I really believed it was not good for them. 

my guys were STTN from about 10pm-7am at 8 weeks old.... so they didn't need bottles at night then- but during the day were always hungry at the 3 hour mark.

janjag

I think at 5mos the ped said we should be working toward 6 feedings down from 8.  But we partly did this by dropping a feeding at night - baby led at first (we didn't ST until 6.5mos - 5mos gest age).  I do think we got to 3.5hrs between daytime feedings at around that time.   

 

sunnybrook.

My girls are 8 months and are still at 3 hour feedings. Sometimes we can push to 3-1/2 hours but I try not to go longer than that. They just started doing one feeding at night this week. I BF though, so it may have been different if they were FF.

Nat1777

Honestly, if your girls are still waking up 2x at night, I wouldn't stretch the daytime feedings more than 3 hours. You want them to get as much of their calorie needs met during the day so they sleep at night.

My girls were sleeping 8 hours by 8 weeks and so on until 12 hours by 12 weeks. They have 5 feedings from the hours of 7am to 6pm at roughly 7, 10, 1:30, 4 and 6.

It sounds like they are wanting to eat more often and they may be trying to do this on their own so they can sleep more at night. Go with it.

jamie217

Thanks!  Honestly, I don't care if they eat every 3 or 4 hours as long as they eat more - since we've been streching it an extra 10-15 mins, my DD who isn't as good of an eater as increased her daily in take and both have increased the amount of time they slept from 13-13.5 hrs to 14.5 - 15 hrs - which helps because my other DD is not a good sleeper and fights it when she's overly tired.

 They've slept 5-6 hours after their last bottle since about 7 weeks, but they need to go down between 6:30 - 7:00 because they get very fussy, we tried pushing bedtime back but they still wake up at the same time.  After that they usually wake up within 3-4 hrs to eat a 2nd time and are up for the day 6:30-7:00 am. I thought they would gradually go longer but they haven't. I cluster fed last night and they slept 7 hours after the last bottle, but were up 3 1/2 hours later.

GiGi1221

Mine were no longer showing interest every 3 hours. They had been sleeping through the night for a couple of weeks...

We started feeding 7, 11, 3, 6 and 8 when they were about 3 1/2 months old.  Has worked great for us~!

amanda31H

My girls feed about every 3 hours (sometimes 2.5 hours), and they wake up once at night to eat.  There have been a handful of times where they've taken a long nap and pushed eating out 4 hours, but that's more the exception than the rule.

I BF and FF.

OrangeSmoke

Our kids are about the same age - Alex sometimes sleep thru the night (10pm to 6am) and Harry gets one bottle a night.

If they are still getting up 2x a night, don't skimp on the day time feedings.  My boys were eating every 1.5 to 2 hours and my pedi suggested that I stretch out their day time feedings so they would eat more at each feeding and learn to hold more in their bellies.  so now they get 4oz every 3 hours (sometimes we don't make it to 3 hours, but at least 2).  So during the day, they get 6 feedings at 4oz each.  That plus the bedtime bottle is 29oz, which is enough for their weight (11lbs).  They've also just started to ask for larger bottles (4.5oz to 5oz) during the day.

And somehow magically, they started to sleep longer at night... not sure if it was related, but I'll take it.