The stabilization phase is usually completed by the eight week. By this
time, most babies are sleeping through the night or very close to
achieving that skill. If your baby is not there yet, don’t worry.
Approximately 15 percent of PDF babies achieve the skill between weeks
ten and twelve. When they do they catch right up to all the other PDF
babies.
The number of feedings in a 24-hour period ranges between eight to
ten before your baby is sleeping through the night, and seven to eight
feedings afterwards. Although you will be dropping the nighttime feeding
at this point, you will not be reducing your baby’s caloric intake, just
rearranging feeding times. Babies tend to compensate for the one lost
nighttime feeding by consuming more milk during other periods.^1
You may need to maintain a seventh or eighth feeding period for four
to five days after your baby initially begins sleeping through the night.
Sticking close to a 2½- to 3-hour routine will help facilitate that goal.
Some mothers find those times more in line with their comfort zone and
stay there several weeks. Most PDF moms are comfortable alternating
between a 2½- and 3½-hour routine, getting in six good nursing periods.
Feeding at Intervals Less Than 2½ Hours
As stated, your baby’s normal feeding periods fall between 2½- and 3-
hour intervals. But there are times when you may feed sooner than those
time increments. For example, the late afternoon for many nursing
mothers is usually when their milk supply is at its lowest point
quantitatively and qualitatively. This is usually due to mother’s busy day.
As a result, there may be an early-evening feeding as soon as two hours
after the last feeding.
Then there is the 45-minute intruder. Most mothers tell us this
intruder sneaks in around seven or eight weeks, and four-months of age,
popping up all of a sudden and out of the blue. Your baby has been doing
great on her 3½ hour routine, feeding and sleeping like the book says.
And then, all of a sudden around week seven, she wakes 45 minutes into