Do I wake my baby for feeds??

[Tilly'sMum]

Hi,

I am a first time Mum of a 19 day old.  We are bottle feeding for one reason or another which primarily I was dissapointed with but seems ot be the best thing for my little one. 

The question I have is this:  As Tilly sometimes goes 4-5 hours in between feeds, am I supposed to wake her in between say, 3 hourly for them?  In addition, I am trying to implement the EASY plan, but she is only awake in between 2 feeds maybe once a day, and then we have baths etc - do I force her to stay awake so we have activity time also??

Any help would be greatly appreciated, parenting seems to be a minefield!!!

[woopster]

Hi there,
I can't help with the easy plan as I'm still finding my feet with twins!

I can tell you though that I find it easier to let them wake on their own, if I wake them to feed, they are not interested and we just sit there with a sleepy baby.
You may get some more advice from more experienced bottle feeders, my first was breast fed so I didn't have this problem.  I shall be watching for any further replies!!

[Mariek]

Hiya

At that age I used to wake Grace for her bottle if she slept through. I didn't let her go more than 3 1/2 hours because if I did she would sometimes sleep 4 or 5 hours which meant we were constantly playing catch up with feeds into the night.

At 19 days activity time can be something as short as a nappy change so I wouldn't worry about some specific activity time.... the more important part of EASY when they're so young is that you don't feed them to sleep. Instead you put that short Activity time in there so they go into their cot/crib/basket awake and learn to sleep independantly. Teaching them to do that at this age will save lots of problems later on.

HTH.

love

[Ronan's mum]

hi,

I'm also a mum for the first time and here we normally feed each 4 hours.
I think the best for your child is to let it sleep because apparently it needs it.
My son Ronan slept in the beginning around 4 or 5 hours between a bottle.
later he wanted more to eat so it was 3 or 4 hours in between.
Now he is 2 months and a half, in the day he takes small pauses to sleep because he has a lot to see now, but at night he sleeps 8 to 10 hours so we can sleep to. Normally he should eat 5 bottles a day, but he already eats 4 a day.
If he doesn't need more I wont force him.

The best thing is to listen to your child what it needs and not to much to what everyone tells you to do, as long as it is healthy in its growing don't you worry.

wish you the best

(sorry for my english)