Does anybody know what is behind this ridiculous practice of waking infants during the night to feed them? My pediatrician gave me a brochure that insists on this, and my sister tells me horror stories about hordes of unhinged nurses bursting into her hospital room at 4 am in order to wake the baby using cruel and unusual methods.
I’d understand people in Ukraine acting out our collective food trauma in this way. But the US is overcome by obesity. What drives this desperation to feed when feeding is obviously pernicious and unhealthy?
Clarissa's Blog 
I always fed my babies when they were hungry. It turns out that that was about every 2-3 hours when they were first born. You get to about every three hours at some point. Then, it spaces out some more.
This coincides with the idea that it’s healthier to eat several small meals in a day instead of 2-3 large meals. Keeps you metabolism going. My experience with babies, though, is that you should never wake a sleeping baby. As much as the baby needs to eat, he/she also really needs to sleep! A kid will never starve him or herself, so let the baby be your guide as to how often to feed him. You’ll figure out when he’s hungry, and I’m sure you won’t deny him food when he is.
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This is exactly what I always thought. If a baby is hungry, he will let you know! But waking them. . . Why?
Thank you for confirming my opinion!
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After the baby is first born the rarest commodity for any parent is time (to sleep, to work etc). You would be crazy to wake them up.
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That’s what I always thought ! If he sleeps , count your blessings and don’t disturb.
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In the very first week or two weeks, regular sucking by the newborn helps to establish a good milk supply in the mother for later (or so I was told). Also, important to keep up the blood sugar levels of a very young infant, I think.
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The problem is that first there was a convincing theory why infants had to be left screaming with hunger through the night (this theory was applied to me actually, with pretty bad results.) Now there is a convincing theory why infants have to be fed when they are not even hungry. Who knows, tomorrow there might be theory #3. For me, all of these theories are suspect because they disregard an infant’s discomfort for the sake of some unproven and unverifiable “benefit.”
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Did you ask your pediatrician why this is supposed to be a good idea? If so, what did they say?
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I was told this was too make sure that the infant’s blood sugar doesn’t drop too low, and they should be woken up day or night if it been longer than five hours (or three or six depending on who I talked to). However, this only applied until it was established that she was gaining weight normally, two weeks. After that, she could sleep as long as she wanted, although it has never been more than 5.5 hours.
To wake her up, I changed her dirty diaper or put her bare chest on mine, which doesnt seem cruel or unusual to me.
In the first three weeks, if I changed her diaper coming up on three hours she would wake up, realize she was hungry, and eat. If I let her wake up from hunger, she would be cranky and frantic with hunger and have more difficulty eating. Now she’s better able to decide if she should go with hungry or sleepy when she’s both!
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As a recent new mother (7 weeks today!) I identify very much with your query… We were told that it is important to wake newborns to feed in the first two weeks because (1) the frequent suckling helps to establish a good milk supply in the mother later on, and (2) it prevents low blood sugar in the very young infant. As the others have said, after the first week or two, the baby will certainly let you know when it is time to feed… [for me last night this was 8 pm, midnight, 3 am, 6 am, 8:30 am; sometimes it is a bit more spaced out].
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