3 hour schedule?

Hi ladies,

We've been trying to keep our babies on a 3 hour schedule however sometimes during the night they sleep longer and we don't have the heart to wake them. How do you maintain your schedules if your not suppose to wake them?

How do you guys do it?

I'm afraid to let them sleep longer as I feel they aren't eating enough to sustain them yet.

 

I know what you mean.... but we just got them up.... we were so tempted to let them sleep... ahhhh the peace and quiet and 'me' time.... but you need to wake them to get the feeds into them.... we woke them every 3 hours (not they ever slept that long - but if they did) through the day - and then let them dictate through the night (but never more than 5 hours - but that only happened once)...and start our day - every day with a feed at 7am - no matter what time the last feed was.... we are on a 7am - 7pm kind of schedule..

 

Once we hit the 2 month mark our Pedi gave us the A-OK to let the girls sleep at night w/out waking them every 3 hours (they mostly woke up every 3 anyways!!!).
I say give your Pedi a call & ask them what their opinion is. If your babies are smaller in weight or were preemies they may want you to continue the every 3 hour feeding schedule for longer ~ or they may say just to let them sleep till they wake up hungry (which they will!)
good luck!

 

I don't have a Pedi where I live, just too small of a town. That being said I never woke my babies at night after 11pm, just let them wake when they wanted to. All my children our healthy happy kids and stay on the charts. My 2 month olds last official 3hr scheduled feeding is about 10:30pm. One wakes at about 4:30am the other can make it until 7:30am. I guess I'm not concerned since the 4 other kids have been fine. The only thing is I usually get my period back by month 3 with this kind of breastfeeding schedule.

But of course always check with your Dr.

 

Our ped had us wake them every 3 hours for the first couple months. And we actually kept waking them at night until just a couple nights ago. I was really paranoid about them getting enough to eat Oh, our ped let us go 1 stretch at night of 4 hours. So we would feed at 11 pm, 2 am, 6am

 

We never woke them at night. We would wait for one to wake up and then wake the other. Then after about a couple months of this, we stopped waking the other baby (poor Ben was always the one that we had to wake).

Even in the day, I never woke them, if they were both sleeping. Just not worth it. It's not like having a STRICT schedule allowed me to go out or do anything anyways so I always just let them dictate the schedule for the day. Worked well for us. Plus, I found waking them to feed, didn't usually work anyways. Much better to wait til they are actually hungry.

 

When mine were that young I think we just woke them up to eat (during the day). We had a 30 minute cushion, so we'd let them sleep up to 30 minutes longer, and then wake them.

 

Once my babies hit the 2 month mark, my doctor said overnight I can let them go as long as they want. So I've been doing that, and they have consistently slept at least one 5 hour stretch to begin. 2 nights in the last week they've gone 7 hours in their first stretch.
I don't feel like they are eating that much more to make up for it, but I feed them pretty much on demand during the day. Which always seems to be every 3 hours or so. It is never the same times every day. Its around the same time, but each day seems to be different. It works though so I just go with it.

 

If I had to do it over again, I would not wake up my babies in the night. During the day we eat every three hours (even if I have to wake them up). But at night they go from 9:30 at night to 7:30 in the morning. At first the Pedi told us to wake them every 4 hours at night. When he said it was fine to let them go as long as they would like, they were stuck at 4 hours. It took a few nights of pacifiying them for them to get out of that habit.

Also, during the day, we just now transitioned to ever 3 and a half hours because they are consistantly having to be awaken to feed.

 

At that age our Ped said they could go 4 hours at night. But that was joke for us since they might have been going 2.5 hours. Mine were not fans of sleeping long stretches. We did feed pretty much on demand during the day trying to keep the NICU every 3 hour feeding schedule, but they barely made that too. I would check with your Ped and see what their recommendation is for your little ones and go from there. And we were in the same camp as the PP's, when one woke, we woke the other until they started sleeping longer stretches.

 

We woke them up during the day if they weren't up by 4 hours between feedings. Starting at 6 weeks I NEVER woke them up at night. I let them decide when it was time to eat. And guess what? They were sleeping 10 hours at night by 2 months old! They got rid of the night time feedings on their own. I was worried at first, waking up all the time to stare at the clock and wonder why they weren't getting up, but they know when they are hungry and I let them dictate that to me.

 

Our pediatrician gave us the go ahead to stop the every 3 hour schedule overnight at our 1 month visit. Gradually they dropped a night feed and then they started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks.

During the day though, my son was and still is like an alarm clock, when it is time to eat, he is up and ready!

 

Thanks ladies. I think we are going to try a 3 hour during the day and 4 hour during the night. At this stage they still wake up on their own hungry so it'll work. It seems if we do 3 hours during the day starting at 8 am, then in the evening we'll let them go 4 hours after the 8 pm feeding and continue from there. Our challenge will be the evening feed as this is when they are most fussy. I'm going to try to get them to eat more during the day to make up for it.

Thanks again, this mommy thing is hard work!

Hugs,

 

Our pedi told us to let them go at night as long as they would sleep once they had regained their birth weight. So for us at the two week mark. Ours were born at 38 weeks, though--I doubt that advice applies to preemies (don't know if yours are preemies or not).

Now, granted, they didn't sleep more than 4 hours at a stretch at that point; but by 6 weeks or so, they were going 6 hours; and by 9 weeks were going 8. So as long as their weight gain has been healthy, I would say let them go at night; but stick to 3 hours during the day.
Good luck!

 

Our basic rule: wake them in the day every three hours; do NOT wake at night after the last feeding (at around the two month mark).