There's no hurry to phase out night feeds. You can choose what works best for you and your child. For breastfed children, night weaning might be an option from 12 months. For formula-fed children, you can consider phasing out night feeds from 6 months.
Until babies gain the weight after birth, they should not skip feeds at night and be fed every three hours. If their weight is not low, they can soon start feeding every four or five hours after few weeks.
From a developmental perspective, babies are able to sleep through the night — defined as a six- to eight-hour stretch — without eating when they're between 4 and 6 months old. In this age range, most babies reach the 12- to 13-pound mark, the weight where they no longer metabolically need nighttime feedings.
Do Babies Naturally Drop Night Feeds? It is natural for babies to drop night feeds on their own. This is because your baby will be able to last longer without food. You can start to prep your baby to drop night weaning by gradually giving him less time on the breast each night.
Breastfeeding at night is a vital part of establishing and maintaining a good milk supply and ensuring that newborn babies get all the milk they need to grow and thrive. Breastmilk works on a supply and demand basis: the more milk that is removed, the more milk your breasts make.
When to stop the dream feed? It typically works best to try to wean the dream feeding before 6-9 months of age. After that, it can disrupt sleep even more than it helps. Babies tend to become a lot more alert by that age and will fully wake up, wanting to play when you are trying to sneak in that extra feeding!
On average, most exclusively breastfed babies will feed about every 2 to 4 hours. Some babies may feed as often as every hour at times, often called cluster feeding. Or may have a longer sleep interval of 4 to 5 hours. How often your baby feeds might change depending on the time of day.
Not getting enough to eat can slow down newborn weight gain. Newborns typically lose between 5 and 10 percent of their body weight, depending on delivery method, in the days after birth. They need to spend the first few weeks gaining it back.
Newborns who sleep for longer stretches should be awakened to feed. Wake your baby every 3–4 hours to eat until he or she shows good weight gain, which usually happens within the first couple of weeks. After that, it's OK to let your baby sleep for longer periods of time at night.
It is still normal for babies to have feeds during the night. You could try a 'late feed' or 'sleepy feed' at about 10pm, before you go to bed, and this may help your baby to sleep longer. Disturb her as little as possible. Lift her without fully waking her and feed.
Generally, newborns sleep about 8 to 9 hours in the daytime and about 8 hours at night. But they may not sleep more than 1 to 2 hours at a time. Most babies don't start sleeping through the night (6 to 8 hours) without waking until they are about 3 months old, or until they weigh 12 to 13 pounds.
When your baby shows they're hungry, feed them! Instead, the advice is that you shouldn't let your newborn baby go longer than 3 hours between feedings which means if your baby keeps sleeping past that mark, you need to wake them up to eat. As your baby grows, so does this amount of time.
Infants under 6 months old can usually sleep anywhere from three to eight hours at night, depending on age and stage. And babies between 4 and 6 months old are developmentally able to sleep through the night without a feeding, but whether they do is another story.
By 6/7 months, your baby likely is ready to drop the night feeds completely. However, keep in mind that many babies still need a early morning feed (between 3-5am) until 12 months!
Dream feeding might wake up your baby more and lead to trouble falling back to sleep, or result in more night wakings because you disrupted that first very restorative period of sleep. Dream feeding may also backfire in the long run because baby will get used to having an extra feed overnight.
Many parents ask: Do you burp a baby after a dream feed? and the answer is always yes. You want to burp a baby after a dream feed—or any feed—before putting them back down on their back.
Newborns can generally go about two and a half hours between feeds. This time slowly extends until about six months when babies can go about four hours between daytime feeds and sleep all night without a feed. But, some smaller babies may need an extra night feed for longer.
Your 5-week-old baby's development
Newborns up to 3 or 4 months old need 14 to 17 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, usually waking every two to four hours to eat. Breastfed babies should eat as much as they want at this age, but a general rule of thumb is roughly 16 to 24 ounces of breast milk or formula in 24 hours.
1-month-old – “At 1 month, your baby may sleep longer through the night, such as 4-6 hours, but typically wake up to feed every three to four hours at night,” says Lewis. 2 to 3 months – “Some two to three-month-olds sleep through the night,” says Lewis. “Each baby at this age has different needs.
Generally, newborns sleep a total of about 8 to 9 hours in the daytime and a total of about 8 hours at night. But because they have a small stomach, they must wake every few hours to eat. Most babies don't start sleeping through the night (6 to 8 hours) until at least 3 months of age. But this can vary a lot.
Most newborns sleep for around 8–9 hours during the day and 8 hours at night. Most also wake up at least every 3 hours to feed. However, this timing varies widely. Some newborns may only sleep for 11 hours per day, while others may sleep for up to 19 hours per day.
7-Week-Old Baby Sleep
Your 7-week-old baby should be sleeping really well (in SNOO babies often have 5, 6, or even 7-hour stretches of continuous sleep). And all that rest is helping them make the most of their awake periods.
Your 7-week-old baby's development
Newborns up to 3 or 4 months old need 14 to 17 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, usually waking every two to four hours to eat. Breastfed babies should eat as much as they want at this age, but a general rule of thumb is roughly 24 to 32 ounces of breast milk or formula in 24 hours.
During the first year of life, it's common for babies to wake at night for food and comfort. There's no hurry to phase out night feeds. You can choose what works best for you and your child. For breastfed children, night weaning might be an option from 12 months.