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We have started doing this and are now getting 5-6 hour stretches at night. I usually offer it about an hour or so after her last feed before bed and she will take it as a ‘top up’ type feed (we formula fed). It’s usually only an ounce or so extra but it seems to do the trick. Sometimes she doesnt take it which you can’t do anything about but most of the time she’s accepting of the extra milk. We are also baby led during the day and since increasing feed before night she is feeding a bit more regularly during the day
Some people do what is called a dream feed where you feed baby while asleep. This tends to keep baby asleep longer in the night. Also some babies would guzzle more milk than they have normally but don't have that... Those are the ones I assume would up feed overnight. Some do just offer that extra feed before bed. Personally I don't need to do any of that because 3 hour intervals during the day is fine for me. I still just feed on demand and if that means during the night ... So be it
@Chloe Oh it’s definitely a thing! We got longer stretches now our baby is in a sleep bag and not just a blanket xx
@Louise I don’t think my baby would feed asleep and her night time stretches are working quite well for us at the moment! Just didn’t know about day time feeds
I'm just waking her up to make sure she gets a feed every 2.5 hours, sometimes in the mornings, she would sleep through longer - that's all people really mean, just making sure baby does have those regular feeds in the day
@Bee Just out of interest why do you wake her if she’s sleeping and over birth weight?
Only in the day, it helps her sleep overnight - getting plenty of calories in the day. That's what you were asking about right?
@Bee Yes sorry! What does her sleep look like at night?
Last couple of nights she's slept 6 hours for the first stretch - she's 5 weeks
Our little girl (9 weeks) is ebf and I feed on demand through the day, which is typically every couple of hours. She sleeps through from the last feed at around midnight to around 8ish in the morning. So I'm confident right now that she's onboarding enough calories during the day to sustain her through the night. I learned with my last baby when he started sleeping through that if he ever woke in the night that was my signal that I needed to up his calorie intake a bit during the next day then he'd be back to sleeping through, so I would see the benefit quite quickly and know it was working. All babies are different though obviously xx
We’ve been very baby led as well but he was only sleeping for two hour periods in the night. I was struggling with tiredness so we changed what he was sleeping in. We now put one of those sleeping bags with the armholes rather than just a baby grow was in, he’s now sleeping for five hours at a time. This may be a coincidence but I’m not complaining!