Hi!

Thanks to everyone for letting me learn so much just from reading
what you all have to say.  I am a 2nd semester junior nursing student
and had a question that may seem obvious to all of you, but what is the
reasoning for waking a newborn to breastfeed while in the hospital?

While in clinicals, I was told to have the mother wake the baby to
feed it every 2(3 hours for sure).  If the baby is asleep, is he
hungry?  Is he really interested in nursing?  Do they nurse as well
if you have to wake them?

I've looked in a couple of books for the reasoning and to see if it
was a universal thing.  I found "...flexible nursery policies will allow
the mother to feed her infant on cue.  It is very frustrating to a new
mother to attempt to feed a newborn who is sound asleep because her or
she is not hungry or exhausted from crying."  (Olds, p.897.)  To me this
sounds like it would be okay to let the baby sleep.

"Don't let sleeping babies lie if it means that they'll sleep through a
feeding."  (Eisenberg, p.390).

"Although it may seem unkind, the sleepy baby should be wakened and fed
at least every three hours.  The sleepy baby needs a "mother-led" rather
than a "demand"schedule until she begins waking on her own."  This is
necessary not only for her nutritional well-being but to insure milk
production and supply."  (Huggins, p. 58) This book gives some reasoning
to my question.

What do you recommend and why?

Thanks ahead of time for any input you can give me, and thanks again
for all that you've already taught.

Amy Lewis

        Eisenberg, A., Murkoff, H.E. & Hathaway, S.E.  (1991).  What to
expect when you're expecting.  New York:  Workman Publishing Company,
Inc.
        Huggins, K. (1995).  Nursing mother's companion (3rd ed).  Boston:  The
Harvard Common Press.
        Ols, S.B., London, M.L. & Ladewig, P.W.  (1996).  Maternal
newborn nursing  (5th ed).  New York: Addison-Wesley.