Please explain about cluster feeds and evening catnap(s)?

[corilat]

Hi,

Can someone please explain to me how cluster feedings are supposed to work? I've been following Tracy's advice since my first was 2-3 months old (now 3.5) and now have a sweet 3.5month old. But I am still confused about this:
If they feed say at the typical 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm routine, then once they go back to sleep, do you wake them each time to cluster feed or are they 'supposed to' naturally have catnaps and wake up to feed then (at 6 and 8 for example?)
What often happened with my 2nd baby now is she either didn't sleep at all until 6 so I just fed her, put her back to bed in hopes of another catnap and then again often didn't sleep so went to bed right after the second cluster feed around 9 or so, so she was awake for a very long time before bed (4pm - 9pm for example), OR
she fell asleep around 5 or so and then STAYED asleep.. for the night unless I would wake her to cluster feed - is that what I should do?

(Of course she then still woke up once or twice in the night.)

So my question is, do your babies just 'naturally' only catnap in the evenings twice and you cluster feed each time, or do you wake them each time? (Or sort of dreamfeed at those times as I sometimes did?) So it sometimes looked like I would be dreamfeeding her 2 or 3 times in the evening (unless I forgot/was distracted one of the times)

Meanwhile all written in past tense because the last 2 days she seems to be sleeping longer, moving to a 4 hour routine!

Also, until what age do babies typically need to cluster feed? Should I still cluster feed her at 4 months?
Most nights she has woken at least once in the night. Sometimes (maybe 5-7 nights in total?) slept right through to 6 or 7 if I remembered to feed her enough in the evenings or if she happened to be particularly tired that night I am guessing.
Admittedly most nights I have only fed her once or twice after 4pm before heading off to bed myself.

Hmm... she is also not gaining as much weight as an average baby of her birth weight, so dropping off the charts a bit (as my 1st did) - so I do try my best to remember to cluster feed! But if she is sleeping and doesn't ask, I can forget!

[deb]

Looking at her age I was going to suggest moving to a 4-hour but reading on it seems she's doing it for you.

If she keeps waking at 7, then, the new daytime feed schedule will look more like 7, 11, 3, and then before bed at 7, so you can feed when she wakes from the 3PM nap and again before bed, so sort of cluster feeding there. You may have to wait until her new schedule settles out - and then she'll switch it up on you again when you start solids. LOL

Meanwhile, if she's only short-napping around 4PM, feed her on waking and then again at bedtime.

[corilat]

Thank you for the quick reply!

Tonight for example after I fed her at 3.45pm (she probably woke at 3.30 but was quietly lying in bed until I peeked in!) and put her back to sleep maybe an hour or so later, she stayed asleep as if it was bedtime. So at around 7 I tried to dreamfeed but she woke so it ended up being me waking her to feed, and then back to bed.

Almost from birth it's been like this though (apart from early weeks when evenings were all fussiness), she either sleeps all evening from an early time so I (usually) wake her to make sure she gets enough calories and to hopefully reduce night wakings, or she just lies in bed after that 3/4/5pm feed and may eventually cry out to let me know she's there (or not, but I still went to feed her at the approx 2 hour marks) and only went to sleep after the second cluster feed at 8 or 9 or so.

So - do babies typically just naturally catnap or is that imposed on them by waking in the evenings to feed?

[deb]

I probably would try to keep her up after that last afternoon nap at this point. Keep it low key, but feed her on that waking and then have a bit of an A time - bath, maybe, or quiet play till you see sleepy cues, and then feed again on putting her down (hopefully) for the night. Then she'd be getting two feeds closer together, and as her schedule is already shifting to a 4-hour one, that afternoon catnap will be the first to go, most likely, so may as well roll with it now.

[corilat]

Thanks. Not sure if that would work so well as my kids seem to need a lot more sleep than average. She gets tired after 45 - 60 min.
She's been going to sleep on her own for a few weeks now this way (after shush-patting in the early weeks) and sucks her fingers/now her thumb.
I feel like, if she was able to fall asleep at 5ish and stays asleep then she probably needs that sleep?

I wouldn't want to get to the stage of overtired... (actually that just happened this afternoon as we had a bit of a funny morning, got woken up during morning nap so fed earlier, then was walked by grandparent while we went to a music class, so fell asleep earlier than usual, woke between 2 sleep cycles in the pram and was unusually grumpy when she woke up - didn't eat as much and was fussy and after a bit of play when I put her to sleep she cried a lot which is unusual for her lately ...)

But also as I mentioned she's very small for her age so I want to make sure she's getting enough calories (I had the same issue with my first - slept a lot and was not gaining as much as she "should have".)

[deb]

How long are her naps?

[corilat]

depends on the time, and day...
Have varied between 3 or more 45 min naps some days, to sleeping 1.5 - 2 hours  at least twice, or even 2 - 2.5 or 3 hours straight! Some times I have woken her because I was worried she would miss out on enough food that day. Other days I was busy/distracted and she went 4 hours (or more!) between meals.
I think she used to mostly have two longer naps in the morning and then from 4ish have shorter naps or none at all.
But some days were messed up because I took her in the car (usually mid-nap) or for a walk - she sleeps better at home. (And those days she just catnapped mostly so I would just keep in mind approximate 7,10,1,4,6,8 feed times or adjusted from wake-up)

[deb]

Ah. When my DD1 was short-napping (45 min) she would get OT VERY fast and be back down an hour after she woke up. In that case our EASY was more like EASAE until we got that sorted. In that case, you just kinda fake it til you make it.

[corilat]

Do you think if she wakes and it's only been 2.5 or 3 hours since last feed I should try to let her hold out till 4 hours?

Today she woke when I transferred her bassinet onto the pram after 45min, she fussed a bit so I hoped she would fall back to sleep but as the pram was stationary, no luck. By 11.15am she was probably a bit hungry but I waited till 11.30ish and fed her - she ate well. By 12.30 tho she was overtired and cried a bit as she fell back to sleep on way home. (She slept from 10-10.50 and fed at 8.30am)

Also, she has always gotten tired after 50 min or so, whether she slept 45 min, or 1.5 hour or 3 hours (well maybe with a longer sleep she stayed up a bit longer but i didn't notice much difference.)

I kind of feel like it's best to just flow with it and if sometimes it's 3 hours between feeds and later 4 hours, no big deal. If she's awake she's going to be getting hungry by that point. Same with when she was younger, if it was only 2 hours and she couldn't sleep I just fed her because I felt she was already pretty hungry.

[deb]

I don't know that I'd go out of my way to extend to 4 hours just yet; 3-3.5 might be fine. I'd just go for a time close-ish to her next "scheduled" feed and follow her cues - unless it's afternoon, in which case you can go closer to "cluster feed."

[corilat]

Ok thanks.
I've re-read the books and I see now that cluster feeds are recommended until about 8 weeks...(unless a growth spurt)

I still am curious to hear an answer to my original question- how are cluster feeds supposed to work, do babies typically naturally catnap twice in evening (somewhere between 4pm-6pm and 6pm-8pm feeds) or is that imposed on them by waking them to feed?

[deb]

I found that later in the day naps were shorter, leaving me more time to fit in extra feeds.