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When is it safe to stop waking for feeds?

ktpaladinoktpaladino member
in Breastfeeding
My 3 week old daughter has been a champion nurser and weight gainer thus far, gaining about a pound on average every 10 days, so she's ahead of the curve there! We are feeding on demand, but she's a very sleepy baby and I have still been waking her to feed if she naps longer than 2.5-3 hours during the day or sleeps longer than 6 hours at night. She still always seems hungry and eats when I wake her, even if it's just a snack. Her pediatrician said I can start letting her sleep since she's doing so well. But I struggled with BFing problems which resulted in slow weight gain in the beginning with my son, so now it's like hard wired in my brain to basically "force feed" my baby when it might not be necessary to do this with my daughter. I'm so paranoid though! At 3 weeks, going more than 6 hours at night especially doesn't seem right to me. My son ate every 45 minutes in the MOTN, so this is quite an adjustment in thinking for me. So funny how your babies can be the complete opposite from one another! Anyways, sorry for the rambling... Let her sleep or continue to wake and feed?

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Re: When is it safe to stop waking for feeds?

  • BootsOrHeartsBootsOrHearts member
    At 7 or 8 weeks, our pedi let us feed him on demand and not wake him up at night. He was a preemie so that is later than most babies would be allowed to do so. It was scary at first, but he started sleeping 4, 5, then 6 hours at a time and the extra sleep was lovely!

    If you're worried, invest in a baby scale so you can weigh her every few days and put your mind at ease. They should be gaining about an ounce a day, on average.
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  • jennyelfjennyelf member
    Our pedi advised that once LO had doubled birth weight, we no longer needed to wake them for feeding. Once LO got to that point, he seemed so chunky that we figured it was probably safe.
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  • KaramelSutraKaramelSutra member
    The usual rule of thumb is once baby hits birth weight and is gaining, it's safe to let then sleep. For supply reasons, I wouldn't go longer than 6 hours tho.
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  • smittie417smittie417 member
    What ^^ said. Once they regain birth weight it is fine to not wake them up.

    DD started sleeping 7 hours at night from 3 weeks. I never woke her or had a problem with my supply. It took a few nights to not wake up engorged, but it wasn't bad.

    But it could mess with your supply, so just be careful. Though, by 3 weeks your supply is pretty well established.
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  • WhitterpowWhitterpow member
    My pediatrician told us we could stop when he was back at birth weight so that's what we went by, not that we had to ever wake him to feed to begin with.
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  • winecastle14winecastle14 member
    Once she regained her birth weight, I always just fed on demand at night and during the day. There were a couple of times that she slept for 4 hours during the day but she was usually an "every two hours" eater and slept for about 6-8 hours at night starting around 6 weeks. If I'd had a major problem with her napping all day and being awake all night, I might have made more of an effort to wake her up during the day to eat, but I'm pretty set on letting the baby lead the way with food. 
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