Hello and welcome to BW forums
Don't worry about not having read the book before your LO arrived. Many people don't discover BW until much later, no problem, you can start any time.
She is still very young and the early weeks babies are very sleepy anyway, it's hard for them not to fall asleep when eating. You can just start putting a little A time between the feed and the sleep by:
- beginning the feed earlier in her A time, she might not be quite as interested a few times but she will also be less sleepy
- try feeding when she wakes, if she won't take any wait say 15 mins and try again, this works along with the above to shift the E time closer to the beginning of the A time and move it away from the S time
- trying to keep her awake a bit more during the feed and if she does nod off wake her up, a nappy change can often do the trick
Moving the E to after her nap rather than before it can be something that is achieved in around 3-5 days as a rough guide, it's not something you need to be trying to achieve for weeks on end, you just do it, show her the way and it will be okay.
You can probably feed every 3hrs but if she needs to feed at 2.5hrs and is very hungry for her feed don't worry, it can take a little time to stretch out those feeds.
When she is more awake for her feed she might take more, dozing off mid feed could be one of the reasons she isn't taking as much as your paedi has advised. Also though, LOs are all different and take different amounts of milk. She's a petite LO (like my boy) so it may well be totally normal to take a smaller feed, her tummy will be tiny. The important thing is that she is producing wet nappies and gaining weight. It's generally good to follow LO cue on how much to feed, so not forcing her to take more but not withholding food either, they are very good at knowing when they are hungry and when they are full. Aim to offer enough in the bottle so that it is not fully drained after a feed, leaving an oz or so.
my first question is to I treat her like she is developing 3 weeks younger than 8 weeks or do I follow 3 hour EASY without cluster feeding.
She was only a little early so you can roughly go by the guidance A times and routines but do remember they are only guidance. That said, mine was 13 days over and he always acted like he was 2 wks older than his real age.
As a rough guidance her A time at this age would be around 1hr 15, that includes all awake time, feeding, nappy change, play/song, wind down everything.
You can cluster feed in the evening at any age really. I would just give it a go and see how things turn out.
Waking more frequently at night might just be a growth spurt and it will pass in a few days or a week. Even if it doesn't pass feeding every 3hrs at night is not excessive and eventually you will get one longer stretch (say 5hrs).
I hope this helps. See how you go and let us know
We're here if you have any more questions.
