feeding brand new babies
Maybe my baby is taking her time so that I can be more prepared and ask more questions.
so I think brand new baby is supposed to be eating every 3-4 hours no matter what. Sometimes you have to wake them to feed them to make sure they get enough to eat. Even if you disagree with 3-4 hours, maybe you might say 4-6 hours? either way, you might have to wake them to eat, right?
so, I can sleep for 8-10 hours easily when I am tired. Do I set the alarm clock in case the baby doesnt cry? I have heard of newborns just being so sleepy that they will sleep for a long time without crying.
am I a crazy person to imagine my baby sleeping that long ever? I know once the first week or so is done, they will definitely be more demanding of food. And once they regain their birth weight or the doctor gives the okay, you can just feed on demand.
Re: feeding brand new babies
We used a countdown timer on DH's watch for three hours from the start of each feed at night for the first week or so. Once we knew she was gaining well (had gained nearly a full lb at her one week appt), I slowly started to let her dictate the nighttime schedule. For the last few times we were using the timer she would wake by herself within about 10 minutes of the timer.
The one nurse in the hospital was trying to tell me it's 3 hours at the absolute maximum for a newborn and was really pushy about it, acting like I was going to starve my baby if I waited till 3.25 or 3.5. Obviously from how she gained weight, she did just fine with me following my instincts. Trust yourself and don't let people stress you out about the "rules".
Also, I know lots of women on here talk about waking every 3 hours during the day even after they've stopped waking at night. Lily is very stubborn and knows what she wants. If I try to wake her to get her to eat when she isn't asking for it, she will refuse to eat and then I've just got an awake, cranky baby. Again, know your baby and don't worry about what you're "supposed" to do.
BFP #1: July 12, 2010 Natural M/C: July 26, 2010
BFP #2: January 30 ,2011 Born: September 29, 2011
BFP #3: January 5, 2013 Born: August 25, 2013
During the day she MIGHT make it 1.5 hours. If we are lucky we can get a 2 hour stretch of her sleeping. She usually wakes up on her own and cries that she is hungry. At night we can usually have a 3-4 hours stretch before she wakes up to alert us that she is hungry.
If she doesn't wake up on her own (which is rare) then we DO wake her up to keep her on schedule. Usually we change her diaper to get her up and ready to go before a feeding if we have to wake her. She hates diaper changes, but its one of the only things that will get her awake.
The general rule given to me by my Pediatrician, and lactation consultant was to go ahead and wake the baby to feed them if you have to.
I set an alarm and had to use it for the first two weeks at night. He was a champ at waking up during the day, but at night he did not want to get up for anything. It would take up to an hour to wake him for a feeding and then another hour to feed him and get him back to sleep.
My ped wants them over birthweight before you have to stop waking them at night. So after 2 weeks, we could stop waking him. That night he slept till 6:30am. And every night since he has woken up hungry between 2-3 hours.
We are currently feeding our guy ever 2 hours (we have an alarm set). The 2 hours starts at the beginning of one feeding, so he generally gets about 1.5 hours of sleep. Our midwives/lactation consultant really stressed every 2 hours hours. This was in part due to the fact that I need to establish my milk supply, but also because he had a tiny bit of jaundice and one of the best ways to help that is to eat eat eat (well and poo out the billirubin, or however that is spelled).
Even without the alarm he seems to still want to sleep for only 1.5 hours. I do know that formula fed babies tend to sleep in longer stretches than breast milk fed babies (since formula is digested at a slower rate) but I would imagine in the first two weeks their need to eat frequently is the same (whether or not they want to sleep through the feedings).
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." -- Dale Carnegie
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." --Thomas A. Edison
I have to do this alarm thing for a month? Oh my goodness. I am not sure I can handle it. I am only 10 days in and I don't even have to dress up as a ZOMBIE for Halloween today. I cannot survive on 5 hours of sleep a day!
We see the LC today. Hopefully, she can shed some light on things we can do to make it all easier. DS will not wake up to feed, so getting him awake takes time. Latching takes time. Feeding takes a while. He will feed for 30 minutes on each side if I let him...sometimes longer. Last night he was really at my breast for about 3.5 hours in a 4 hour period. I just let him go. Then I allowed 3 hours between feedings instead of our normal 2 (from the end of the marathon to the beginning of the next feeding). I slept like the dead.
More often than not, DS and I just sleep together in the recliner, and when the alarm goes off, we do it all over again.
Good luck to the rest of you ladies who are struggling. It is HARD! I have almost given up and am still on the verge!
Just to reiterate what the other ladies said before me, you need to wake your baby up every 2.5-3 hours until he/she is back up to birth weight. You need to be strong about waking up your sleeping baby - undressing him/her, tickling, even a wet washcloth if need be. Your baby might even demand feedings more frequently than that. You always count feedings from the beginning to beginning. Sadly, that's not good news for your sleep. If a feeding takes an hour and you need to rock your baby to sleep, you might only catch an hour of sleep in between feedings. I didn't really get this until I was doing it myself.
The GOOD news is it gets (slightly) better as soon as they start putting on some weight. And I *loved* my sleep before having C, and I can totally function on a lot less now.
Ditto pp. I never had to set an alarm, LO always woke me up. Last night I woke up once first, but I'm a light sleeper. Possibly because my breasts were full though. His doc didnt give us a time when we didn;t have to wake him, but it hasn't been an issue because he's still waking me me about 2.5 hrs to feed (beginning to beginning). And I'm able to function overnight on much less sleep.