Nowadays, we tell the mothers that the baby should be fed whenever the baby is hungry i.e. cries for feed and wants to suck. We call this demand feeding. You will find that after the first week of life your baby will usually set up her own routine. Some babies will finish their feed within 10 to 20 minutes at one go, while others will take a longer time. Some babies will have a set pattern of feeding; that is they will feed for 10 minutes, rest for 10 minutes, again feed for another 10 minutes, and then rest for 30 minutes. During this 30 minutes they may sleep (light sleep) and then wake up and feed for a short interval and then sleep for 3 to 4 hours. I observed this pattern with my baby and many other mothers have told me that their baby have had a similar pattern of feeding. When babies keep on demanding feeds again and again at short intervals, some mothers think that the milk secreted by breast is not enough and therefore they supplement breast milk with bottle feeds. This is one of the reasons because of which many mothers do not succeed in fully breast feeding. If your baby is passing urine frequently, and gaining weight after the first week of life, your baby is getting enough milk.
Usually by 3 months of age, babies drink milk at interval of 3 to 4 hours. They will probably sleep for 3 hours, stay awake for 3 hours, and then again sleep for 3 hours. At night, many babies do sleep for 6 to 7 hours. During this time, they may wake up only once for feed and then sleep again after that.
In 24 hours, a 3-month-old baby will sleep for about 15 hours. However not all babies follow the same pattern and if your baby follows a different pattern you do not need to worry about that.
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