advice required

[cherrybomb]

James is nearly 3 weeks old, I am breast feeding and feeling slightly confused. At the moment I am waking him every 3 hours for a feed (start to start) during the day, and only feeding on demand after 10pm at night.

Do I feed every 3hours to establish a routine as per text book, or just feed on demand?

Also during the day James tends to sleep between feeds during the day, and I find at night he is normally awake between 2am and 5am at night. How much sleep should he have during the day? The books say he should have a max of 5 hours sleep per day, how do I entertain him to keep him awake for the rest of the time so we can switch his body clock to sleep more at night and less during the day?

Thanks

 

[LisaJ1986]

I can't help with the sleeping bit, but breastfeeding tends to work better on demand. A baby knows when he is or isn't hungry, so follow his lead. It helps establish your supply. Mybe going with what he tells you may help night times too.

 

[Sherlock]

TBH while he is still so young I'd go with demand feeding day and night and let him guide you. He'll feed when he is hungry and this will help build and establish your supply. Breast milk digests far quicker than formula hence small babies needing to feed often. They only have tummys the size of a walnut so don't hold much and need to feed lots.

Also each baby is so different that its better IMHO to just go with the flow in these early weeks with regards to sleep etc. It takes a fair while for babies body clocks to adjust to day and night. It may be 12 weeks or so before your LO starts sleeping longer overnight. Breastfed babies tend to feed at night also for quite a while longer than formula fed babies. Again, this is because of how much quicker breastmilk digests.

I'd not be trying to keep your baby awake during the day. If he wants and needs to sleep, let him, if he is awake then My son was one of those babies that from about 10 days old didn't sleep for longer than 15 minutes at a time and only about 2 or 3 times a day. Other babies sleep far more, but there is no right or wrong.

As he gets older and settles into breastfeeding and your supply settles down you'll find your LO starts to sort his own body clock out. You can help by making daytime sleeps and feeds with background noise, light rooms etc. Night time keep it as dark as possible, don't talk to LO and when fed then settle back down to sleep (if possible).

I'm all for following babies lead and demand feeding. I don't belive in spacing feeds out for small babies to x amount of hours. Babies don't understand 3 hour gaps between feeds and may be hungry sooner. No point having an upset hungry baby when all s/he wants/needs is a boob feed.

 

[Sage]

the first thing id do is get rid of the books! i tried to do the txt book 'feed every 3 hours' but things were getting so hard i just decided to take my sons lead, let him sleep when he wanted to and feed whenever he asked. was a million times easier. i think trying to establish a routine before 4months is very very hard indeed and not worth the stress. Its true when they say babies will naturally fall into their own routine.

 

[babynumbertwo]

Although night time waking is very hard work it is really normal for a breast fed baby as it is thought that milk production is higher at night. Babies usually settle into a routine of their own after a few months (not necessarily sleeping through but at least having a more predictable feeding pattern) so for now I would give yourself a break and just go with the flow. My baby is 7 wks and I can just about guess now when he will need feeding but in the first few weeks it was totally unpredictable. Although we are still having a few problems it is certainly getting easier as he gets older. Good luck x

ps - if you like reading books (I do!) get yourself a breastfeeding book which should give you the confidence to follow your baby's lead. I'm guessing you may be reading general baby care books? Some of them tend to promote a fixed routine from very early on which is not realistic for a breastfed baby

 

[MagicMarkers]

I reckon go demand too, your baby knows when theyre hungry more than any book ever will

 

[Squiglet]

The idea that baby's feeds should be regulated by us is quite a modern idea... its only 100 years old, and follows the introduction of formula. The natural way is to bf'd on demand and for the baby to have free access or at least be close to you at all times. Night waking is common in all babies... its the norm I would say...and in bf'd infants its almost always like that. They do get into their own routines eventually... what you can do is make sure you get up the same time every day with you LO and start a bed time routine, bath book boob sorta thing, at the same time every night and you will find you LO settles into a feeding routine based on that. During growth spurts they will feed more often, even mothers of ff babies say that during spurts their baby demands more milk. So demand feeding allows your baby to be in control