4 Hour EASY for newborn?

[lindabrad]

Hi all,

Our first baby was on EASY and did very well 3 years ago. I just had my second baby who was 4 weeks early 2 weeks ago (he was due another 2 weeks but had C section planned for next week before he decided to come out early!)  He had to stay 4 days more at the hospital because he was slow at feeding  and when he left the hospital he was already put on 3-4 hours routine. He's been feeding well & putting on weight but he's more to 4 hours than 3 hours so I am wondering if I should keep him on the 4 hr routine or move him back to 3 hr routine? I feel like we might be going backwards  if we go back to 3 hrs but I am not sure if that means he will have too much sleep during the day and affecting his nighttime sleep eventually? At the moment he sleeps a lot - which is ok as he is a premmie but I want to get it right from the start.

Hope it makes sense? Thanks

Linda

[waterdragon]

Hi,
Im no expert but with our DD1 I did 4 hrly feeds because she just had no interest in feeding more often.She was a dreadful sleeper so the 3 hrs in between had very little sleep .By 4.5 months it all sorted its self out.(Nights were bad but this was NOT down to too much day sleep.)
 My 8 week(DD2) old i put on a 3 hr EASY 2 weeks ago and its working well for a nap point of view but I have 2 problems with it
 1. feeds very small amts as not hungry enough
2. Hate waking her when she not ready to feed and also I am wondering if the freq. A periods are causing OT in the evenings (takes an hour to settle to sleep). So I think if she naps for the 3hrs in between thats great and it means no time transitions and the baby gets older. But I think its hard to tell what kind of 'napper' you have till about 6 weeks.

[Khalam's Mama]

You should bear in mind that the reason most LO start on a 3hr routine is because they cannot eat enough to sustain them for longer. If LO is waking lots at night this may be due to hunger as not getting enough calories in the day if only feeding 4hrly. Also premmies often need more frequent feeds esp if smaller. what sort of sleep are you getting? What has the weight gain been like? Are you getting lots of wet and poopey nappies?

[*Ali*]

When DS was born I did not know about BW. He was very sleepy wasn't waking for feeds. As advised by my hospital I woke him after 4 hours of sleep in the day and 5 hours in the night. This meant he was going 4 hrs from the END of the last feed to the beginning of the next. Way too long. We did have some problems with urates in the nappy but this stopped at about a week old. I am EBFing BTW.
Anyway this didn't last more than a few weeks and he was soon waking crying for feeds every 2-3 hours day and night until about 8 weeks. I didn'tget back to a 3hr routine until I started BWing at 3mo. So this may not go on forever even if you don't do anything to actively change the routine.
Are you BF or FFing?