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.
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! For babies that are waking more than that, chances are that they are not actually hungry, but just wanting to be soothed.
Is a 10-minute feed long enough for a newborn? For older babies, a quick feeding for 10 minutes is normal, but for a newborn just learning to breastfeed, it may not be enough. Your newborn may not be getting enough milk and may be too tired or frustrated to continue.
3 - 4 Months
By this age, your baby can start sleeping a bit longer. As long as your baby is growing well, your doctor will probably tell you that you don't have to wake your baby every 3-4 hours to feed anymore. But that doesn't mean that they won't still wake up during the night to feed.
As a guide, the following times are recommended to bottle feed your baby. 20 - 40 minutes for newborn to 3 months. 15 - 30 minutes for babies 3 months to 6 months. 10 - 20 minutes for babies over 6 months.
Freshly made bottles are best, however many parents choose to prepare their baby's bottles in advance. Premade bottles are a popular method for parents looking to make night feeding easier, so here's how to prepare bottles for night feeds using this method.
Night feeds often become quicker too. Some mothers use breast compressions as a way of speeding up feeds. Being able to help their older baby back to sleep quickly with a breastfeed helps many mothers get the most sleep.
Therefore if your baby sleeps more than four hours it is recommended to wake baby to feed them including during the night for at least the first two weeks, or until they are over their birth weight.
If your little one is under 16-weeks adjusted age, it's normal for infants to wake several times a night—those are most likely hunger cries, which means you should respond to by feeding your baby.
At about 2 months of age, babies usually take 4 to 5 ounces per feeding every 3 to 4 hours. At 4 months, babies usually take 4 to 6 ounces per feeding. At 6 months, babies may be taking up to 8 ounces every 4 to 5 hours.
It may only take your baby about 5 to 10 minutes to empty each breast and get all the milk they need; however, this is different for everyone.
Babies who are feeding well can take anywhere between five minutes and 40 minutes at each feed. Another guide to how well your baby is feeding is what comes out! So plenty of wet and soiled nappies are a good sign. From about a week old, a healthy, well-fed baby is likely to be producing six or more wet nappies a day.
To help prevent the milk from coming back up, keep your baby upright after feeding for 10 to 15 minutes, or longer if your baby spits up or has GERD. But don't worry if your baby spits sometimes. It's probably more unpleasant for you than it is for your baby. Sometimes your baby may awaken because of gas.
For some parents, it's between 11pm and 4am, while for others it means just two very short feeds in the night. You can't change your baby's needs, so instead try to find the best way of getting through night feeds for you. And most importantly, try and remember that the night feeds won't last forever.
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.
5-Week-Old Baby Feeding
“Babies can still breastfeed on demand—usually they will want to breastfeed every 2-4 hours at this stage,” she notes. “But sometimes they will want to feed every hour and other times will not eat for 5 hours.” All of this is common, she says.
KEEP IT LOUD
We recommend using white noise all night long to help your baby settle and sleep, so definitely keep the white noise going while you're feeding your baby! This continuation of their “sleep noise” will ensure they remain sleepy and in the right zone to go right back to sleep after their feed.
Keep your baby upright after feeding
Instead of laying your baby down flat after feeding, keep them upright for about 30 minutes so gravity can help them digest their food. Otherwise, they're more likely to spit up.
A baby who is fed to sleep and has been sleeping all night will likely start waking again after 4-5 months. If the feeding to sleep continues, many babies go back to waking 4-6 times or more every night, wanting the powerful breast milk/sucking/cuddle combo to get back to sleep.
First Weeks and Months
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.
Unless your baby is sleeping peacefully, always change a wet or dirty nappy and change your baby before or after each feed.
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.
After 4am, the production of melatonin slows way down/stops. Sometimes this makes it hard for babies and toddlers to sleep past those wee hours of the morning. It can be hard to get your child to go back to sleep at this hour.
The key message here is that it is ok to put a baby to sleep without burping. For many babies, parents find they don't notice an improvement in sleep if they purposefully relieve gas before putting their baby down to bed. However, some babies do tend to sleep better by burping their baby before falling asleep.
If your baby will take a good feeding while still being swaddled, keep them swaddled. If they need to be unswaddled to eat well, unswaddle them. If your baby awakens, it's okay: many wake up during the feeding.