How many night feeds is normal? How to count your baby's night feeds

Yes. Young babies have small stomachs and need to eat often, day and night. WHO's guidance on feeding babies under 6 months is to breastfeed as often as the baby wants, day and night, and the NHS-run Dorset Healthcare breastfeeding service says waking at night is normal for at least the first six months, and can go on for longer.

A guide for health professionals from UNICEF UK's Baby Friendly Initiative, Caring for your Baby at Night, reports that most breastfed babies still feed between one and three times a night for the first six months. It is a description of what many babies do, not a target, and your baby may feed more or fewer times and still be well.

No public health body gives an age. Parenting and sleep-coach sites quote anything from about 4 months to a year, and they often split formula-fed from breastfed babies, but they disagree and they are not medical standards. Babies also take a step back during illness, teething, a growth spurt or a sleep regression, and then a feed they had dropped comes back for a while.

So use the log as the evidence. A count that slowly falls over several weeks is a trend you can see; one bad night is not.

For one to two weeks, note each feed that falls between your baby's bedtime and their morning wake-up:

• The time it started. For a breastfeed, the length and side can help; for a bottle, the amount.
• Whether your baby woke by themselves or you woke them (for example, because your midwife asked you to).
• Anything unusual that night: a cold, teething, a vaccination, a trip.

Nobody agrees where night starts, so pick a rule and keep it: for example, every feed after the last evening feed and before the first morning one. The point is to compare your baby with last week's baby, not with anyone else's.

Log every feed as usual: Breastfeed with the timer, or Bottle with the amount. Night mode is free and keeps the screen dark and warm, with the log buttons in the bottom of the screen so you can use it one-handed.

Baton does not count night feeds for you. The Charts screen shows the number of feeds per day, for the whole day, and it splits sleep into night and nap but not feeds. To count night feeds, open the History tab. It lists every entry grouped by day, newest first, with its time. Look at the feeds between bedtime and morning, or tap a Breastfeed or Bottle filter to list only that kind (one filter at a time) and count the night ones.

The 7-day charts are free; 30- and 90-day trends are part of Baton Plus. History is free and always complete. CSV export of every entry is free too: each row has the kind and the start time, so in a spreadsheet you can filter the rows that start between, say, 20:00 and 06:00 and see the count per night. If your partner uses Baton through their own iCloud account, you both see the same feeds, each marked with who logged it, which helps when you take turns at night.

Look at the direction over two or three weeks, not at single nights. If the count is steady, or gently falling, there is nothing to do. If it jumps up for a few nights, look at your notes: illness, teething or a growth spurt often explain it. If your baby also seems to feed poorly, or the number of wet and dirty diapers falls, tell your health visitor or pediatrician. Our guide on whether your baby is getting enough milk explains what to watch.

Do not stop night feeds on your own because a chart or a website says an age. Ask your pediatrician first, in particular if your baby is young, is breastfed, or has any feeding or growth concern. Whatever the number of feeds, the AAP's safe-sleep basics apply after each one: baby on their back, on a firm, flat surface made for babies, with nothing soft in the sleep space. If you might fall asleep while feeding, plan for it in advance and read the AAP's advice.

Ask your pediatrician, midwife or health visitor if your baby is hard to wake for feeds, feeds poorly or tires quickly at the breast or bottle, has fewer wet or dirty diapers than your care team expects, is not gaining weight as expected, has a fever, or if anything about their feeding worries you. You do not need a log to justify a call, but a week of feed times makes it easier to describe what is happening. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.