I teach the nurses at my hospital that babies should be "offered the breast every 1 1/2 hours", that means that the baby is unwrapped (if sleepy) and placed on moms chest/ offered the breast until he feeds. If more than 3-4 hours passes since last feed and baby (laying on moms chest) still is sleepy then we check a blood sugar( not that I think it's that imperative, but I'd rather that than formula), if the blood sugar is fine the baby gets to wait on moms chest another hour or two. However, it's been my experience that babies usually will awaken if on moms chest, on moms chest mom is a little more aware of her babies cues early on, and if all else fails that heel poke for the blood sugar will wake them up. I use the analogy for them that on a cold winter morning when I am all cuddled up under my down comforter, when my husband wakes me up to eat breakfast I tell him I'm not hungry, however if he starts frying bacon, cooking sweet rolls the aroma gets me out of bed all on my own. The babies who have trouble feeding often enough, IMO are the ones rolled up like a burrito and left in the crib to sleep, I say "bring them into the kitchen, and let them smell whats cookin'" Barb in Shell Lake, WI *********************************************** 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