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Feeding Your Infant

Do I need to wake my baby up to feed it?

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Dr. Ann Kellams
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Virginia

Dr. Ann Lenox Kellams, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics in the Division of General Pediatrics and medical director of the newborn nursery at the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital, is an expert in newborn care and breastfeeding. Kellams teaches pediatric clinical skills to students and residents and authored the Newborn Nursery Resident and Student Curriculum and Orientation Manual for UVA Children’s Hospital. Kellams serves her surrounding community by being a mentor for the African American Student Mentorship Program, by serving on the Virginia Breastfeeding Advisory Committee and by hosting various community education workshops on newborn and infant care. She received the Outstanding Graduate Designation from her alma mater, the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

Do I need to wake my baby up to feed it?

In this video Dr. Ann Kellams discuss the many issues surrounding how to properly care for a newborn baby.

This expert: 70,899 views

This series: 11,587 views

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Host: Do I need to wake my baby up to feed it?

Dr. Ann Kellams: So, the babies are often quite sleepy in the first one to two days of feedings. In the first four hours of life they could be very awake and very alert. That's the best time to initiate breastfeeding and get them on the breast. After that they tend to be more sleepy. What we also know though is that the more times they are offered the breast, the more times they attempt to breastfeed and actually, nurse, the better they do. So there is a fine line between letting them sleep in their natural cycle and catching the moments that they are stirring or awake and sometimes we do recommend waking them up if it has been more than two or three hours and they haven't nursed, go ahead and wake them up and get them to the breast. If the baby is bottle-feeding then it's at least every three to four hours.

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