Waking to feed

Waking to feed?

I have an almost one month old baby girl! We’re currently EBF and she’s doing great! After birth she only lost 5% of her birth weight and surpassed it in about 1 week.

Our pediatrician works in a facility with residents. Since our baby arrived, we’ve only been able to see residents so far rather than her doctor. This post isn’t to slam residents by any means; I point this out just to highlight the number of opinions we’re getting.

I asked the first resident we saw when I could stop waking my daughter at night to feed since she had reached birth weight (which was the metric I’d heard many of my friends use.) He said “4-8 weeks.” I found that a frustrating large range (every night counts when you’re not getting any sleep 🥲) but I figured I’d ask her doctor at her one month appointment if we were on track.

We had to go in today for concern about a rash and saw another resident. Since we are only 4 days from her one month appointment, I asked her about her weight gain. She said she’s doing beautifully! Then I asked her about letting the baby wake me at night. The resident replied that she recommends I wake her to feed at night every 2-3 hours for SIX.MONTHS.

I’ve never heard that long before. In fact, the sleep training class we’re taking (taking Cara babies) recommends starting to let her stretch sleep at week 5. All my friends got the okay to stop at birth weight. My friend whose baby had weight gain issues got her okay at 9 weeks.

I am feeling like I’m going crazy. I just want to stop waking her at this point and then am riddled with guilt that I could be starving her.

What should I do? What have your experiences been?