Feeding on demand?

[lola]

Hello! I have a call into the pediatrician but I wanted to ask here too... My baby is six weeks old, and we're still waking her to feed every three hours during the day, but letting her sleep through the night. She's 98th percentile in height and head, 75th percentile in weight, so this schedule has been working. She's been averaging 8 feeds per day. But especially in the mid-morning, she doesn't want to wake up to eat. At what point did you stop waking your babies on a schedule and feed on demand instead? I don't want to mess with her growth progress or tank my supply since I need to be able to pump for work. Just trying to figure out the best course of action. Thanks!

[billyhorrible]

We started feeding on demand at birth, waking at night until he regained birth weight (so like 2 weeks).

My youngest was 99% in height and 30% in weight, which gave him a 1% BMI. At that point the doctor recommended I feed him more often to see if we could chunk him up. But even then I never woke him to eat.

[byjove]

Once she regained her birth weight, I didn't wake to feed.

[lilyelayne]

+1 to not waking after baby regained birth weight.

Though I will add around 8 months when the world got super interesting, I had to go back to a bit of a schedule or LO would have skipped all daytime nursing and then been up all night.

[emmyg65]

Yep, once he regained birthweight, we got the go ahead to not wake.

[lola]

Thank you! I've started letting her sleep and just keeping an eye on things in case she goes too long. So far, so good!

[emilie]

My LO (almost 6 weeks) has started gaining better since we took her off the schedule and let her set her own. Awake during feeding = better, more productive nursing sessions, at least for us. Trying to wake her to feed was annoying because she'd just fall asleep at the breast.

[Deleted]

My baby was a fatty, so I only woke her to feed her until she had gotten back to her birth weight. After that we fed on demand. At first it was when she woke up and again to put her to sleep, but after her jaundice was resolved it was just before her naps.

[kensie5226]

My LO never lost any of her birth weight so I NOD from the start. My pedi was 100% on board with this.