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!