Objective To determine whether feeding with 2-hourly or 3-hourly feeding interval reduces the time to achieve full enteral feeding and to compare their outcome in very low birthweight preterm infants.

Design Parallel-group randomised controlled trial with a 1:1 allocation ratio.

Setting Two regional tertiary neonatal intensive care units.

Patients 150 preterm infants less than 35 weeks gestation with birth weight between 1.0 and 1.5 kg were recruited.

Interventions Infants were enrolled to either 2-hourly or 3-hourly interval feeding after randomisation. Blinding was not possible due to the nature of the intervention.

Main outcome measures The primary outcome was time to achieve full enteral feeding (≥100 mL/kg/day). Secondary outcomes include time to regain birth weight, episode of feeding intolerance, peak serum bilirubin levels, duration of phototherapy, episode of necrotising enterocolitis, nosocomial sepsis and gastro-oesophageal reflux.

Results 72 infants were available for primary outcome analysis in each group as three were excluded due to death—three deaths in each group. The mean time to full enteral feeding was 11.3 days in the 3-hourly group and 10.2 days in the 2-hourly group (mean difference 1.1 days; 95% CI −0.4 to 2.5; p=0.14). The mean time to regain birth weight was shorter in 3-hourly group (12.9 vs 14.8 days, p=0.04). Other subgroup analyses did not reveal additional significant results. No difference in adverse events was found between the groups.

Conclusion 3-hourly feeding was comparable with 2-hourly feeding to achieve full enteral feeding without any evidence of increased adverse events.

Trial registration number ACTRN12611000676910, pre-result.