Whether you should wake a sleeping newborn for feedings depends on the baby's age, weight and overall health.
Most newborns lose weight in the first few days after birth. Until your newborn regains this lost weight — usually within one to two weeks after birth — it's important to feed him or her frequently. This might mean occasionally waking your baby for a feeding, especially if he or she sleeps for a stretch of more than four hours.
Once your newborn establishes a pattern of weight gain and reaches the birth-weight milestone, however, it's generally OK to wait for feedings until he or she wakes up.
Most newborns need eight to 12 feedings a day — about one feeding every two to three hours. While waking up a sleeping baby might seem like a bad idea, frequent feedings early on are important for a couple of reasons:
Crying is a late sign of hunger. The sooner you begin each feeding, the less likely you'll need to soothe a frantic baby. Look for early signs of hunger, such as hand-to-mouth activity, smacking lips, rooting and stirring while asleep.
Frequent feedings support early breast-feeding. If you breast-feed, frequent feedings will help you establish your milk supply.
Keep in mind that premature babies often have special nutritional needs. They might not reliably show late hunger cues, such as crying. If your baby was born prematurely or you're concerned about your baby's feeding patterns or weight gain, consult his or her doctor for specific recommendations.
Sign-up to get Mayo Clinic’s trusted health content sent to your email. Receive a bonus guide on ways to manage your child’s health just for subscribing. Click here for an email preview.
To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which information is beneficial, we may combine your email and website usage information with other information we have about you. If you are a Mayo Clinic patient, this could include protected health information. If we combine this information with your protected health information, we will treat all of that information as protected health information and will only use or disclose that information as set forth in our notice of privacy practices. You may opt-out of email communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail.
Schanler RJ, et al. Initiation of breastfeeding. http://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed Jan. 13, 2020.
Hagan JF, et al, eds. Promoting healthy nutrition. In: Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents. 4th ed. American Academy of Pediatrics; 2017.
Meek JY, ed. A perfect design: How breastfeeding works. In: The American Academy of Pediatrics New Mother's Guide to Breastfeeding. 3rd ed. Bantam Books; 2017.
Breastfed babies feed often, about every 2–3 hours. Bottle-fed babies tend to feed less often, about every 3–4 hours. Newborns who sleep for longer stretches should be awakened to feed. Wake your baby every 3–4 hours to eat until he or she shows good weight gain, which usually happens within the first couple of weeks.
This means that by 10-11 weeks, babies who are eating full feedings every 2.5 - 3.5 hours all day long, showing steady weight gain, and staying on their growth curve can sleep 11-12 hours at night without needing you to wake them for a feeding.
Until your newborn regains this lost weight — usually within one to two weeks after birth — it's important to feed him or her frequently. This might mean occasionally waking your baby for a feeding, especially if he or she sleeps for a stretch of more than four hours.
Newborns generally sleep for two to three hours before waking to eat, day and night. As they get older, babies are usually able to sleep for increasingly longer stretches of time at night without waking to eat. Between the age of 2 to 3 months old, healthy babies are often able to sleep for six hours without feeding.
Most babies usually feel hungry every 3 hours until about 2 months of age and need 4-5 ounces per feeding. As the capacity of their abdomen increases, they go longer between feedings. At 4 months, babies may take up to 6 ounces per feeding and at 6 months, babies might need 8 ounces every 4-5 hours.
It is not necessary to wake most older newborns up to eat. However, those younger than 1 month old or so may not wake up when they feel hungry. Babies younger than 4 weeks old should not go longer than 4–5 hours without food.
While it does make sense not to proactively disturb a sleeping infant during the first few months of life, once a regular day/night circadian rhythm develops (usually between 3-6 months of age), there is no reason why babies and older children should not be getting most of their sleep at night, and only a small (and ...
Most pediatricians recommend that you wake up your baby if they are due for a daytime or nighttime feed. Babies shouldn't go without feeding for more than 4 hours. So while most of the time your baby will let you know when they are ready to eat, it's okay to wake them up if they snooze past the 4-hour mark.
As a rule of thumb, a truly hungry baby will rarely choose sleeping over eating. So, if your baby falls asleep in your arms without taking a full feeding, it's likely he was tired — not hungry.
Or it may just be that your baby was enjoying the sleep and took longer to wake up. It is generally recommended that feeds are no further than four hours apart in the first three months, so if this situation regularly repeats itself, see your paediatrician.
Others suggest waking to feed during the first five to six weeks if your baby sleeps longer than five hours at a time. Usually, babies younger than 6 months wake up every three to four hours because they're hungry, so the question of whether to wake them (and lose precious rest yourself) may not be a concern.
As a guide, many babies sleep 14-20 hours a day in the first weeks. By 3 months many are settled into a pattern of longer sleep times – perhaps 4 to 5 hours at night. When a baby sleeps about 5 hours straight, this is considered 'sleeping through the night'.
Parents whose babies are sleeping for long 4-6+ hour stretches at night at this age are simply… lucky! Sleep cycles aren't mature at this point and there is no biologically driven schedule.
Babies come with an incredibly sophisticated self-regulation system: When they're hungry, they eat, and when they're full, they stop. So when babies turn away from the bottle or breast and refuse to even consider another nip, they're telling you they're full.
By the end of the first month, most babies consume at least 3 or 4 ounces per feeding, about every 3 to 4 hours. By 6 months old, they may take in 6 to 8 ounces at each of 4 or 5 feedings in 24 hours. Also at about 6 months old, solid foods should start to be added to a baby's diet.
On average, most exclusively breastfed babies will feed about every 2 to 4 hours. Some babies may feed as often as every hour at times, often called cluster feeding. Or may have a longer sleep interval of 4 to 5 hours. How often your baby feeds might change depending on the time of day.
It depends. Some 2 month olds still wake to eat about every 3 hours throughout the night, while others can go quite a bit longer. How long your baby can go without eating at night depends on a few factors: their individual growth and development, strategies for healthy sleep, and time to practice.
Introduction: My name is Nicola Considine CPA, I am a determined, witty, powerful, brainy, open, smiling, proud person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
