Cluster feed 8hrs and counting! :(

[8750rich]

Help! My little boy is 9 days old. He started feeding at 12:39 today and had not stopped since! Its almost 20:30 now. He feeds till he falls asleep on the breast, I put him in his moses basket, but within 5 minutes he's awake again and looking for more. We've had 5 dirty nappies today!
Is this normal? Is something wrong?
He usually cluster feeds from about 8pm till 2am. I keep thinking 'this time he'll stay asleep', but nope.

[lenibose]

I would make sure his latch is correct. I think my longest session was 6 hours (around the 9 day mark) and a similar session at 20 days I think. After that, I would assume that he was sucking for comfort rather than food (nothing wrong with that at 9 days- and trying to establish supply).

I think what's waking him, is the putting in the Moses basket. If you want to stretch some time between feeds then why don't you just hold him and let him sleep for a bit? Then when he's had a couple of hours of sleep, he should wake nicely hungry again. It may be that he's not that hungry- it's just that he's waking up when you put him down, and doing what he knows best- rooting for the breast.

DS really didn't like being put down for the first month or so except when I walked him in his pram. I used the 'No Cry Sleep Solution' to gently reduce 'arm sleeping' and by 3 months he would squirm if he fell asleep in my arms and preferred to be left alone once asleep.

[8750rich]

That sounds very similar to him, he slept in the pram this morning but has no real sleep since 12:30. He's clearly exhausted but won't give in to sleep. You're right, I should stop putting him down. I'm just trying to get him to sleep in the basket because I don't really want to have him in my bed at night, but at the moment that's the only way he'll sleep. I guess I just need to give in to the co-sleeping for now then!

Thank you for your help! Xx

[ouryve]

he's just growing.

His clothes won't fit any more on Wednesday.

Every so often, you will have marathon feeding sessions to sit through. Don't expect to achieve much more than finishing that box xet you fell asleep partway through and shoved in the back of a cupboard.

[poocatcherchampion]

I second the holding. Thry hate being "abandoned" after the lovely snuggly comfiness of your womb

[Wigeon]

I don't think he's cluster feeding, I think he just wants to be held. Permanently. Throughout the night. Which annoyingly is completely normal.

Daytime: sling. Mobs wrap is lovely.

Nightime: you can spend hours and hours trying desperately to get him to sleep in his Moses, which he might eventually, at 3am, and then wake up for a feed half an hour later (yes, I'm looking at you, DD1). Or you can just cut all that crap, and just co-sleep when he wont be put down, and everyone gets much much more sleep and is much less rattled (yes, that's DD2).

Both DDs happily slept through the night eventually and I wish I'd given in to the co-sleeping much more readily and with much less guilt with DD1.

[lenibose]

Yes, once we realised that co-sleeping was the only way forward, he (and we) slept so much better. So by 6 weeks we had sorted day/night (through a gentle night routine that we did each night and we still do at 4!) and while he would wake to feed, he would promptly fall asleep again. We co-slept for as long as I breastfed (a year), and then gradually moved him into his own cot and then his own room.

I also hadn't realised how much newborns grunt and squirm at night. And make noise that doesn't necessarily indicate they are awake/need attention. Once when he was 5 weeks old and I was co-sleeping, MIL slept in the same room for one night (long story why). Anyway the next morning she looked shattered and said, 'how did you sleep through that NOISE?' And I was like, 'what noise?' Turns out in 5 weeks I had become immune to the grunting/groaning and straining!

I have friends who swear by the Sleepyhead btw. It's extremely expensive though but friends who have it, rave about it. It wasn't around when DS was a baby so I can't comment on its effectiveness. But I can see that's the kind of thing he would have liked- something that made him feel soft and snuggled up.