mother2B
01-09-2006, 15:51
i've been tearing my hair out too and looking for solutions here on bubhub and everywhere else. my DS is 10 weeks old today, and just last week we figured out what was going on with him... he was waking every two to three hours day and night to feed since birth. 10pm, 1.30, 3.30, 6am, etc. i was seriously sleep deprived, even though DH took one of the night feeds with a bottle of expressed breast milk.
i spoke to our child health nurse at malouf pharmacy, who said he was big enough (13 lbs!) to last most of the night without a feed (at least 5 or 6 hours). she said ronan was 'snacking', and asked if i was feeding him from both breasts. i hadn't been, since he hadn't been interested. she encouraged me to do so, saying i'll have a better baby! hmmmm... worth a try.
she said they get tired trying to get milk from breast #1 toward the end since it's mostly drained and stop trying. now when he starts bobbing off #1 (about 10 minutes) i switch him to full and easy-milk-access breast #2 (with a quick burp between.) in order for this new strategy to work it meant he had to be hungrier... so a few times at first during the day i delayed a couple of his feed times by an hour with the dummy (godsend) and taking him for a walk. this had the effect of making him hungry enough to feed from both breasts, which made him sleep longer at night! i swear it worked! :smiliedance:
a week later he is now going to sleep after a feed at 7pm, not waking til midnight for another 4 -5 oz of expressed breast milk, then not waking for another feeding again til 7am. he does still wake briefly at 5am, not interested in food, and goes back to sleep immediately. i think that's just a habit that he'll drop soon.
good luck and i hope this great advice helps someone else!
i spoke to our child health nurse at malouf pharmacy, who said he was big enough (13 lbs!) to last most of the night without a feed (at least 5 or 6 hours). she said ronan was 'snacking', and asked if i was feeding him from both breasts. i hadn't been, since he hadn't been interested. she encouraged me to do so, saying i'll have a better baby! hmmmm... worth a try.
she said they get tired trying to get milk from breast #1 toward the end since it's mostly drained and stop trying. now when he starts bobbing off #1 (about 10 minutes) i switch him to full and easy-milk-access breast #2 (with a quick burp between.) in order for this new strategy to work it meant he had to be hungrier... so a few times at first during the day i delayed a couple of his feed times by an hour with the dummy (godsend) and taking him for a walk. this had the effect of making him hungry enough to feed from both breasts, which made him sleep longer at night! i swear it worked! :smiliedance:
a week later he is now going to sleep after a feed at 7pm, not waking til midnight for another 4 -5 oz of expressed breast milk, then not waking for another feeding again til 7am. he does still wake briefly at 5am, not interested in food, and goes back to sleep immediately. i think that's just a habit that he'll drop soon.
good luck and i hope this great advice helps someone else!