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.
Newborns won't sleep through the night because they need to eat frequently. In fact, two to four hours at a time is about as long as you can expect your brand new baby to sleep during those early weeks and months — depending on whether you're breastfeeding, formula-feeding or both.
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.
Once your newborn establishes a pattern of weight gain and reaches the birth-weight milestone, however, it's generally OK to wait for feedings until he or she wakes up. Most newborns need eight to 12 feedings a day — about one feeding every two to three hours.
Here's how often you can expect your baby to eat at night during the 0 - 2 month age timeframe: Breastfed Babies - 3 to 5 feedings per night. Formula-fed Babies - 2 to 4 feedings per night.
The amount of sleep an infant gets at any one stretch of time is mostly ruled by hunger. Newborns will wake up and want to be fed about every three to four hours at first. Do not let your newborn sleep longer than five hours at a time in the first five to six weeks.
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.
You'll want to aim for wake windows around 50-90 minutes. I don't recommend letting your baby's night last any longer than 12-12.5 hours.
By 6 months of age, your baby is developmentally ready to start sleeping through the night without a feeding — or at least for longer stretches.
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.
“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.
Four-week-old babies still don't sleep through the night, they often need to eat very frequently, and many have fussy evenings, or even signs of colic. 3 But much of this is outweighed by the fact that they are starting to become more alert and interactive.
Feedings should be spread out to every three to four hours or so (and maybe even more spread out at night), though demand feeding is still generally the way to go, especially for the breastfed set. Of course, with all that eating comes lots of pooping. Your baby will still be averaging a few bowel movements each day.
As a guide, many babies sleep 14-20 hours a day in the first weeks. By 3 months many are settled into a pattern of longer sleep times – perhaps 4 to 5 hours at night. When a baby sleeps about 5 hours straight, this is considered 'sleeping through the night'.
Put baby skin to skin to smell the breast. For the first few days you may need to wake them to feed if they are still sleeping by 3 hours from the last day feeding and 4 hours at night. If baby still won't eat, allow baby to sleep another hour and try again to wake and feed them.
Don't worry, baby will ask to be fed as usual as soon as his stomach feels empty again. Your baby may be constipated and appear less hungry than usual, however once this passes everything will go back to normal. Or it may just be that your baby was enjoying the sleep and took longer to wake up.
Newborn babies need to feed every few hours until the age of 3 months. After this, it is normal for infants to feed once or twice during the night. Most infants can sleep for 6–8 hours without a feed by the age of 6 months. Once they are 9 months old, most infants can sleep for 11–12 hours without a feed.
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.
To make sure your newborn is growing, developing, and maintaining proper weight gain, it's important to wake them for nighttime feedings. This also helps breastfeeding moms keep up with the pace of their milk production. However, this feeding schedule changes as they grow.
A baby occasionally sleeping for longer than usual is not a cause for concern unless there are other symptoms. In general, it is uncommon for a newborn to consistently sleep through feedings or to sleep for longer than 19 hours per day unless they are ill or are having feeding difficulties.
In general, you can expect your baby to sleep an hour per week old they are, starting about 5 weeks old. So, a 5-week-old may be able to go 5 hours, a 6-week-old may be able to go 6 hours, and so on.
Your baby is sleeping longer at night—as many as four to six hours at once, if you're lucky—and you're having longer awake and alert phases during the day. Your baby might prefer to sleep for a few hours after eating and then wake up to play for an hour or two before getting hungry again.
Newborns may nurse for up to 20 minutes or longer on one or both breasts. As babies get older and more skilled at breastfeeding, they may take about 5–10 minutes on each side.
At about 1 month, your little one can detect the brightness and intensity of colors, and over the next few months may start to see several basic colors, including red. Your baby's color vision is fully developed by about 4 months, when they'll be able to see lots of colors and even shades of colors.
What's typical at 1 month of age depends on your baby's birth weight and whether they were born at term or early. For averages, you're looking at about 9.9 pounds (4.5 kilograms) for a boy and 9.2 lbs. (4.2 kg) for a girl .