Here's why I suggest nurse more often, or at least to offer to nurse more, almost every time there is any question that a baby may not be getting enough. Yes, even if you are cue feeding and baby nurses a ton already. Basically, why not? It cannot hurt, and it may help.
Maybe there is no issue. Maybe baby is gaining just fine. Doctors suggest unnecessary supplementation all the time. On the other hand, I have not seen your baby (nor do I have the training to observe if baby is fine if I had) and your pediatrician HAS.
Why in the world would it make sense to supplement with EBM if baby is capable and willing to nurse more often?. A baby who can transfer milk efficiently is ALWAYS better at extracting milk than a pump. So pumping would only mean way more work for you (the pumping, the cleaning of the pump) and the unnecessary introduction of bottles which may cause issues and again, make more work. If you are able to produce enough milk for baby, much easier and less problematic to forget pumping and simply nurse more.
A baby this age may go 2-3 hours between feedings and be fine, but a baby this age would also normally still be cluster feeding and nursing more frequently than that at least part of the time. Same with sleep stretches-some babies at this age start having long sleep stretches. If weight gain is fine, no problem, but if weight gain is a concern, then yeah, why not wake up baby for an extra feeding or two? Can’t hurt, may help.
So I am not saying you HAVE to nurse more, I am simply saying, if weight gain IS or even just may be an issue, and the goal is thus to get more into baby, why not do it by nursing more often-the simplest, healthiest, and most effective way to increase milk intake (and milk production, for that matter) -and the only way that does no harm?
How many fewer moms would be sent down the road of pumping, supplementing, unnecessary bottle introduction etc, which so often cause breastfeeding issues, and even often paves the way for the early cessation of nursing, if doctors merely told mothers to nurse more often rather than supplementing at the first sign of trouble?