[Daisy8383]

Just wondering when do babies go from 3 hourly to 4 hourly feeds? Is it around 3 months old?? My bub is currently 7 weeks and feeds twice each night. What's your bubs sleep patterns?

[CharliMarley]

If you are breastfeeding, you should let your bubs make the time, as they need to feed frequently as breastmilk is very digestible and babies only have small tummies. Some breastfed babies will feed every 2 hours around the clock and you really need to especially feed them overnight for quite a while.

[lucky 2]

For a breastfed baby, who essentially is self feeding (ie indicating need to feed and given access to your breasts), they change their feed frequency when they want to.
The ideal situation is to work out the fine details of positioning and attachment at the breast and help your baby to be a good breast feeder and then you can let baby take charge.
Babies of 7 weeks are often feeding 8-12 times in 24 hours but this is variable, some more or less.
Lots of mothers of bottle fed infants will also let their baby feed to need and if baby is growing normally then this if fine.
I'd avoid changese in feed routine just at the moment as unsettled behaviour (ie long periods of crying esp in the evening) is peaking at 6-8 weeks of age, right where you are now, so feed frequency may naturally alter after this peak has passed. Or not.
All the best.

[KRT]

Demand feeding is the way to go, but I had a very unsettled bub who was less than clear in his hunger signals. So on the advice of sleep school, we aimed for 3-3.5 hours between feeds at 12 weeks. Then, on the advice of the lactation consultant at 5 months, we aimed for 3.5-4 hours between feeds.

Two feeds a night at 7 weeks is awesome. DS fed 3 times between 7pm and 6am until 8 months.

[puffsgirl11]

It varies with DS. After his last feed of the night (usually between 7 and 9) he has his longest sleep which can go for 4 to 6 hours (although we have had 2 nights this wk that went for 7 to 8 hours) and then he wakes after a 4 hour sleep for a feed and during the day he feeds every 2 hours. Although last night he woke every 4 hours and has fed every 1.5 hours today, it is 40 degrees here.

[ubermum]

My baby is 6.5 months. She feeds three times between 11pm and 5.30am and gets up for the day at 7.30. All my kids have done the same, they have fast metabolisms. She should cut herself down to 2 around 8-9 months, 1 around 12 months and then cut out night feeds around 15 months.

They are all different and yours will know what they need.

This post has been edited by ubermum: 01/01/2013, 01:43 PM

[Lokum]

It varies with DS. After his last feed of the night (usually between 7 and 9) he has his longest sleep which can go for 4 to 6 hours (although we have had 2 nights this wk that went for 7 to 8 hours) and then he wakes after a 4 hour sleep for a feed and during the day he feeds every 2 hours. Although last night he woke every 4 hours and has fed every 1.5 hours today, it is 40 degrees here.

This is my 6 week old too. He's gaining well and feeding well so I let him go overnight, but try to keep up the feeds to 2-3 hourly during the day. Wwe're averaging around 7 feeds in 24 hours, but sometimes it's one side, the the other side 45 mins later, so not sure if you count that as one or two... pretty flexible and led by the baby.

[Petskies]

Both my DD's were breastfeed but feed totally differently... dd1 was a frequent feeder at night waking 3 to 4 times for feeds till she was well over 6 months, dd2 was sleeping 12 hours straight at 3 weeks and feed like a machine during the day. who know what my next bub (being induced tomorrow) will be like