Five week old feeding every two hours at night.

[Emma04]

Hi looking for some words of wisdom and advice. As the title says my little one is five weeks old and wakes for a feed every two hours at night, I was happy with this he takes about two or three ounces and goes back down. He does go usually three hours in the day. Now my well meaning family are telling me to stretch his feeds out at night so he starts sleeping longer - meaning I have a baby who wants a feed but I should make him wait longer in the middle of the night. Now I don’t know what to do for the best. Am I doing the wrong thing feeding him when he wakes at night? Is this too small a gap between feeds? He’s still basically a newborn and I expected him to wake at this interval anyway!

Sorry for the ramble I’m tired and confused!

[Cheekymonkey85]

Feed on demand, he will change pattern on his own in his own time. There's nothing wrong with how frequently he's feeding. There's this obsession with how often a baby feeds & sleeps in between so just ignore it xx

[Emma04 in reply to Cheekymonkey85]

Thank you - I needed to hear that right now !

[Hidden]

Go by baby. He will go longer. Also I was told once they start draining bottle then up it one ounce so then he could possibly go longer then x

[Seb9]

Trust baby, they only have tiny tummies at this age and have no idea about day and night. My six month old only just goes about 4 hours now.

If baby is gaining weight, having good wet and poop nappies then ignore what anyone says to you.

I just smile and either do a mental eye roll or discrete middle finger, then ignore anyone giving me advice. My baby would have had rusks at about 3 months old if I'd listened to my mother in law 🙈🙈

[ADhirani]

I ignored this comments from the well meaning people and don’t regret it, I sleep with the baby in the cot next to my bed and feed her every two hours.

There are nights when she wakes up just once, there was a few night she slept through, but overall the approach of feeding to cues has worked for me amazingly.

In early days I had to keep her upright and burp before putting her back down, and now at 3.5 months I don’t need to do it anymore.

Breastfeeding is not just food, it’s drink and it satisfies the need for proximity.

Can you imagine how you feel when refused water when thirsty or hug when you need one?

Go with what works best for you! Happy mommy, happy baby.

[Bakingcupcake]

Feed baby as and when he wants on demand...I had MIL telling me there was no such thing as "cluster" feeding and feeding on demand as they didn't do that in her day...i ignored her advice and went with what my midwives etc were telling me and by baby...you will be fine...people just love to tell you what they would be doing etc etc

[EstherBP]

Every two hours is fine, my baby is 10 weeks and was eating like this and I was told to space out his feeding because he would cluster feed any time during the day and eat every two hours at night, I just ignored it- I don’t like the idea of him being hungry! Then around 7 weeks he decided to do a 4 hour stretch and now does 6 hours for the first part of the night (10-4am) and still does every 2 hours after that. I literally just followed his queue and go with the flow.

Don’t stress about it, I was using alot of time stressing but all babies are different and tell you what they need, I would say

[Sarah_37]

Definately feed on demand my first son used to feed about every hour, the baby will draw the feeds out when ready xx