Should I feed my four month old less often?

[mozette100]

According to the EASY routine, my four month old should be feeding every four hours. My dilemma is that she has slept through the night since three months, her last feed usually being around 6.30-7pm and she doesn't wake again for a feed until 6/6.30am.  During the day she feeds every three hours and has five feeds a day. She is on the small side but has been putting on weight steadily. If I put her on the four hour schedule, it would mean waking her at night for a feed. Is there any point in doing this? Is there some logic behind the four hourly feeds that I am missing?

[shivi]

I moved to 4 hrly feeds at 4 ish months but still had a DF so we were doing 7-11-3-7-11 so still 5 feeds.

The main reason I moved to 4 hrly feeds was to fit in with the EASY. Mine are on the low end for sleep needs so were doing 2 hrs A and then the blessed 2 hr naps that I'd been trying to achieve since they were born, but was blessed with the 45 min nap monster with each of them till some magic at 4 mths, both times!

So we were on E 7am, S 9-11, E 11am, S 1-3, E 3pm, no sleep and feed 6,30pm asleep by 7pm. DF at 11pm and STTN from 10 and 14 weeks respectively.

Tracy's theory is that by 4 mths babies can take in more at each feed and can do longer A times as well but if your LO is still doing well on 3 hr feeds and with shorter A times (or perhaps shorter naps with the CN at the end of the day as well....) then I would stick with it for now.

Great that a EBF baby is STTN 12 hours....you don't hear of that very often ;-)

Just remember that when things start to get hairy it will probably mean that you'll have to increase A times and/or drop the CN and perhaps then move to 4 hrly or gradually with 3.5 hrly feeds over time...

for now, if its not broken I wouldn't be looking to fix it ;-)

HTH and good luck x

Siobhain.