waking 3 wk at nite for a feed?

[joannek]

Thanks, Sarah. That is as informative as all your other posts =)

I was just waiting for you to help out ;p

makes me feel so much better about not waking my baby.

so this works for on demand breastfed babies only, i guess? cos for formula feeding you have to feed them every 3-4 hrs?

 

[Shenzhennifer]

I see you're getting lots of advice. I won't give any since I myself heard and received so many conflicting advice about this subject. For my baby (now 11 weeks), I was pretty paranoid about making sure he ate every 3 hrs at least in the beginning. Now I wish I was a bit more easygoing, bc he gained weight almost too well (despite being 2 weeks early and solely BF). He rarely will sleep for those stretches of time even now. Consider yourself lucky - it's just a shame that you have to wake up anyway to pump, but I'm sure that will fix itself within a couple of months.
I would just listen to your mother's intuition. You know your baby best, and you are already an experienced mother. Second, I'd then listen to the LCs.

 

[HappyV]

Every baby is completely different. I would agree with Sarah - that if everything else is going OK, there's no need to worry about longer sleeps at night.

Having breastfed two premmie babies, one of whom had a low birthweight, I hve always taken the approach that if you wake them to feed during the day as necessary, and leave them to sleep at night, then your baby starts to learn from day 1 that night is for sleep. As long as the weight gain is good, then you're OK. As long as the baby is alert, you're OK. And quite frankly, Sarah's advice will be more informed in regards to breastfeeding than most doctors or confinement 'nurses' - seeing as the vast majority of their clients would be formula feeding, whereas Sarah's focus is on BF babies.

Sarah , as always, great post.