Sharon, thanks for clarifying: "The 5 hours or more basically refers to experienced moms that let their babies sleep. 8-12 feedings per day in the early weeks may not occur if they expected the baby to wake up and ask for a feeding." However, I would be interested in the reason you chose 5 hours and 8-12 feedings. I know we might all have rules of thumb, but I am unaware of any research which indicates that babies whose feeding pattern does not fall within this practice (even in the early days) require intervention. I looked up the evidence for step 8 'encourage breastfeeding on demand' of the WHO/UNICEF Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding (Evidence for the Ten Steps to Sucessful Breastfeeding, 1998, WHO, Geneva). The conclusion is: "The breastfeeding pattern, that is the unmber of episodes and the total duration of suckling per 24 hours, varies widely between mother-infant pairs and over time, so truly unrestricted breastfeeding cannot follow guidelines based on mean values.' Much of the discussion is around *frequent* feeding, but I know from my days of doing BFI assessments that the limits given for length of time of 'allowing' the baby to sleep (usually set somewhere between 8 and 12 hours when there is a limit in a UK maternity unit -- at least, last I heard, anyone know different?) varied, and it was one of the difficult concepts to get over to staff that a fixed *outside* or maximum limit for feed frequency is addressed in this step as much as the inside or minimum limit for feed frequency. An assessment of the individual baby remains the guide for knowing if there is a reason to wake the baby. Of course, you may be talking about a population of drugged babies, born part-way down the cascade of intervention, where timing is a further intervention needed to prevent the iatrogenic side-effects of the mode of antenatal care and the style of birthing. In that case, I would hope that your guidelines reflect the reason they are needed -- so that if any babies are ever born through a less interventionist style, they will be allowed to develop their own feeding pattern! I would be interested in knowing where the five hours is written up and also if others out there are using this guideline or have other limits. If the latter, do please include the evidence. I know this is a tedious bore for everyone, but I remain continually fascinated about the origins of these limitations. Magda Sachs Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html