How long would you let a 2-week-old baby sleep before waking for a feed?

First-time mum here to a full-term 2-week-old baby boy. We had a bit of a rocky start with feeding as he had an infection and spent some time in hospital, but thankfully he is now doing really well and is well above his birth weight.

He is formula-fed and, up until now, we’ve been setting alarms and waking him for feeds roughly every 3–4 hours. Most of the time he wakes naturally within that window anyway, but occasionally he’ll sleep longer than 4 hours.

Now that he’s gaining weight so well, I’m wondering whether we still need to wake him every 3–4 hours, or whether we can let him sleep and wait for him to wake up hungry.

For those with formula-fed newborns, how long would you personally let them sleep at this age before waking them for a feed? Did you continue waking overnight once they were back above birth weight, or just follow their cues?

Obviously I’ll check with our health visitor/GP as well — I’m just interested in hearing what others have been advised/done. 😊

Posted Aug 10, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

316
Loading comments…