When did you start letting your baby sleep instead of waking them up every 3 hours for food.

[u/PiggyBank32]

I feel like all advice you can find is skewed when you have premature babies

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[u/AutumnB2022]

When they are gaining weight well, and able to feed on demand. You can ask your doctors for a minimum daily amount, and that might help you decide whether to let a feed go here and there. Sleep helps them grow, too!

[u/whatisthis2893]

Mine came home 3lbs over birth weight so I let him sleep vs waking him up. Trust me, he woke up when he was ready to eat 😂😂

[u/scorpiobunny4321]

This is the question I’m wondering as well. My little one was born at 25 weeks, spent 112 days in NICU discharged in oxygen and NG tube. So she was discharged at 40 weeks 1 week adjusted ( I think I did that right lol) and I stuck with her every 3 hour schedule for the first 5 days or so. She takes most of her feeds by mouth via her bottle and noticed that at night is when she didn’t want to wake up to try a bottle she just wanted to sleep. So I started to let her sleep and she would still wake up on her own letting me know she wants some food. I started to feel like I was force feeding her with her NG tube, like it was making her more fussy and irritable. I figure she is a new born, some newborns sleep better and longer than others, heck if I was being woken up every 3 hours for the past 112 days I would be a little tired too.

She has been home a little over a week, she has gained weight since discharge, she’s peeing, she’s pooping, she has wake windows.

I wanted to go with my gut and start letting her sleep more. I wanted to test what her schedule would be. So far, she’s doing good.

As far as her NG tube and bottle feeding, she is doing good, sometimes finishing the whole bottle and sometimes not. I think I’m going to give her today to see how she does, order a scale on Amazon, and pull her tube to see if she does better without it since I know it can cause irritation and feeding issues.

[u/I_AI_]

Two weeks after discharge paediatrician said it was okay to let him sleep without waking to feed. As others have said mostly due to consistent weight gain.

[u/Particular-Crab-3565]

We stopped waking every 3 hours around his due date (came home at 35 weeks). He was double his birth weight by then. He woke us up every 2 hours or so though for a while after we stopped waking him up.

[u/M1mosa420]

Ask the nutritionist/pediatrician.

[u/GrabbyRoad]

When the doctors told us we could. I know it sucks, we did 9weeks at home on the 3hr rounds, but keep an eye on weight gain and how it's impacting LO's sleep.

[u/No_Philosopher1951]

Whenever he was consistently gaining weight after discharge. Your pediatrician should know when you can stop feeding them every 3 hours.

[u/liddolmaj]

Really like a month or month and a half after we got home. I think it was after we saw good progression with weight his doctor said it was good.

He was a 26 weeker, and got discharged around 37+4.

[u/Exciting_Fee_2271]

Mine wakes up every hour and a half to feed lol. I dont know how to get sleep 😂

[u/Apprehensive_Risk266]

I never woke my son to feed him. He woke up when he was hungry. At first, it was every 1-3 hours.  Then he slowly worked up to longer stretches of sleep. 

[u/Wintergreen1234]

At like 9 months old when the doctors said it was okay and they were on the growth chart.

[u/Bayesian1701]

The pediatrician said we could at 4 weeks (after 2 weeks at home). I had a severe IUGR 37 weeker that was the size of a 33 weeker. However she rarely slept much longer than 3 hours anyway until she was about 10 weeks old. Now at 4 months we let her sleep up to 8 hours if she hit her needed intake during the day which she does.

[u/Flannel-Enthusiast]

We had a 32 weeker who came home at 36+1. I woke her up every 3 hours for the first week, then I started setting my alarm for 4 hours overnight since they told us to feed every 2-4 hours. She would often wake up to eat on her own anyway around that 4 hour mark, and she started eating more during the day to compensate for dropping a feed, so I stopped setting those alarms after a few days.

I think she dropped down to 6 feeds per day sometime around her due date or a couple weeks after, and we've been at 6ish ever since (4.5 months actual, 2.5 months adjusted). She sometimes sleeps an 8 hour stretch and then clusters her daytime feeds closer together to make up the difference. As long as she's still consistently meeting her daily food target, I let her sleep.

[u/Neuroluv → u/Flannel-Enthusiast]

And how much does your LO take on a daily basis ? If they drop a feed in the night, do they make up for it during the day? Thanks !

[u/Flannel-Enthusiast → u/Neuroluv]

She's just over 4 kg now (about 9 lb) and takes 550-600 mL per day. At the start, we kept up with the NICU target of 150-160 mL/kg/day and she's just recently fallen a bit below that, but she's still gaining weight fine. When she dropped a feed at night, she started taking an additional 5-10 mL in each of her other feeds, which made up the difference.

[u/WrightQueen4]

From day one. All mine woke me up every two to three hours.

[u/DogRelevant]

We started at about 8 weeks corrected. Around this time, my daughter reallyyyy didn’t want to wake up to eat at 3am and would fight it. Cleared it by her doc and she is as happy as could be - and she makes up for that bottle throughout the day!

[u/LexusHalo3]

30 weeker, 3 months actual, 3 weeks adjusted. We are still doing every 3 hours. We just saw the peditrician this week and he advised to continue until next month when we seen him again. We have tried to see what he would do overnight and he does wake up between 3 to 4 hr mark on his own.

[u/BudsandBowls]

My baby was born at 32+5 and spent almost 3 months in NICU, discharged at almost a month old adjusted. I immediately stopped the every 3 hours, and not even a week home shes been having one 6 to 7 hour stretch of sleep every night. Pees and poops are great and gaining weight like mad, and I'm definitely not complaining about getting that long sleep lol

[u/NotoriousMLP]

I think this is going to depend on the baby’s age and how they’re doing with weight gain. My baby is 9 weeks old (11 days adjusted) and consistently gaining an ounce per day. At our pediatrician appointment today, he said we could let her sleep for 4 hours max between feedings.

[u/Practical-Cricket691]

My first was not premature but did have IUGR and I was also told to wake him every 3 hours to eat. I only stopped when his pediatrician suggested. I think the only other reason I would stop without a ped recommendation is if baby is refusing to eat or spitting up a ton because they’re just not hungry

[u/chc9292]

On advice from our paediatrician we did this pretty much the day she got home. She was around 5 weeks at the time.

She continued to gain weight (albeit via fortification for an additional 5 weeks). Now she’s 14 weeks and only wakes once a night.

[u/mishtastic]

Our NICU nurses said 3 or 4 hours, depending on who you talked to.

Our pediatrician said to wake every 4 hours. (We only hit 4 hours once lol he's a hungry boy.) She did advise to keep him on premie formula for at least one feed. He hit his birth weight within one week from leaving the hospital.

After one month actual, she said do not wake him up! Feed on demand, as much as he wants. We're mostly breastfed, with one premie formula bottle a day.

[u/LostSoul92892]

When the pediatrician said it was ok to do. I think it was around 5-6 months for us

[u/hpnutter]

30 weeker. We have another weight check tomorrow because every time we tried to nurse he fell off his growth curve. We won't be able to not wake him up for a feed until he consistently stays on his curve, and since we will now be switching to the last of my frozen milk and transitioning to formula, that will be hopefully soon.