I typically set an alarm for every 3 hours, but I don’t even remember waking up for one. My daughter wasn’t even crying; she was just grunting in her sleep and is eating right now. Our doctor said she’s fine to eat every 3 hours in the day and safe to go for 2 four-hour cycles at night. Her birth weight was 6lbs 1.5oz and at her 2-week check-up, she was 6lbs 9oz. I feel awful like I just put her in danger; does anybody know if this will cause any harm to her? She’s not crying or anything and is eating happily.
Edit: Thank you all for the responses and reassurance. I guess doctors just like to scare the crap out of new parents. When I came home, a nurse told me that if she was too hungry she wouldn’t wake up to eat and just sleep from exhaustion, so I guess that’s where the panic came from. Baby currently has a boob in her mouth and is very happy. Hopefully, I can get her back to sleep after this. I appreciated the kindness so much!!
Rin said:
She’s fine. If she’s passed her birth weight you don’t need to wake her up.
I’ve always wondered with this, is there an age caveat if they never lose any weight? My son was 9lbs 10oz at birth and by 5 days old was 9lbs 12oz and just kept gaining. I was told to wake him every 2-3 hours to feed him, and I carried on doing this for weeks as I hadn’t heard about the birth weight thing.
Rin said:
She’s fine. If she’s passed her birth weight you don’t need to wake her up.
Agreed! Our 3-5 week old wouldn’t wake when we tried, so we just followed her lead. She’s sleeping 3+ hours, and by 8-9 weeks she was sleeping 8-9 hours. Our baby was over birth weight and 10 lbs by over a month old, so you should be all set!
Beckett said:
My doctor said once they’d regained birth weight, as long as they were still gaining weight, it was fine to let them sleep uninterrupted overnight.
Our first doctor told us to wake her up every two hours. Now we have a 21-month-old who is a terrible sleeper, and I still blame that doctor.
She’s fine. If she was hungry or needed something, she would have cried. After gaining back to birth weight, you can let them sleep longer if they don’t wake up to eat. Just monitor wet diapers or weight loss; otherwise, it sounds like she’s fine.
We’ve also been given advice that once they are past birth weight, you can let them sleep and only feed when they ask for it. Our boy officially passed his weight this morning, which we are thrilled about!
Girl, lucky! Congratulations! I’m sure you needed that sleep. My baby was a similar weight and didn’t regain her weight until 3 weeks. We exhausted ourselves for no reason, but now she’s sleeping much better.
The night my daughter was born, we both slept around 5 hours in the hospital, and I freaked out. The midwives weren’t concerned and said she would’ve woken up if she needed anything. Try not to worry; you have a good sleeper!
It’s critical for infants to eat frequently when they’ve just come out of the womb, so accidentally going longer than the recommended 2-4 hours is not going to be detrimental to their development.
If she’s past birth weight, is eating well during the day, and getting plenty of wet and dirty diapers, it’s totally fine to let her sleep for longer stretches at night!