Do babies have a regular feeding pattern right from birth?

No. In the first 24 hours, healthy babies can have a wide variety of patterns but a common one is to suckle at the breast eagerly in the first hour or two and then have a sleepy phase with very little suckling. This initial sleepy phase is followed by an active phase where they may want to suckle very frequently for 3-5 hours. This cluster feeding often happens after 20 hours, or on the second night of life. It is normal not to get much sleep that second night! Newborn babies generally have nursing sessions at least 8 times in 24 hours starting on the second day. The timing of these sessions is very individual and the spacing between feeds is variable - babies do not feed by the clock.

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