Supply concerns - lack of night waking and fussiness at the breast

[JetLi]

Please don't flame me

DD is 6 weeks old. Fully BF, gaining weight, lots of wet and dirty nappies and generally a cheery little soul.

From birth she has been a good sleeper - nighttime sleeps have gradually increased over the weeks from around 4 hours to 6 and sometimes 7 hours. So consequently I'm not doing much night feeding at all now. Last night, after her bath & PJ's, she fed pretty much constantly from 9:30pm to 11pm and then went out like a light until 6am. First feed of the day is generally a peacful enough affair. There's boob freely available the rest of the time and she is a bit of a milk demon during daylight hours, and she has perfect hunger cues (fist sucking, pushing her tongue out etc). We do have a fair bit of fussing at the breast most days - not at every feed and there's no particular pattern - the fussing is that she thrashes and pulls at the breast, claws at the breast and at her own face with her hand, pushes against anything that she can get her feet braced against, growls and groans and it's like feeding a baby alligator. In this respect we're working our way through the excellent fussy baby advice on Kellymom. Breast compression seems to be helping a wee bit so far as does regular & rigorous winding.

So because we're doing so little night feeding are we doomed to a reduced supply? Are the lack of night feeding and the fussiness therefore related?

As for me, the morning engorgement is pretty damned uncomfortable and I'm pretty sure my monthly cycle is normalising so my periods are going to come back but at least we're not sleep deprived

Thanks

[scarletlilybug]

DD2 had similar sleep patterns amd started sleeping for 10 hours at night every night from 10 weeks. Managed to exclusively bf for 6 months, and bf until she was 2.6.

I'm not an expert, but the fussiness can be a symptom of over-supply rather than under-supply. If she's happy and healthy, gaining weight and with lots of wet nappies, I wouldn't worry. Enjoy your sleep.

As for periods - can't remember exactly, but I think dd2 was over a year old before they returned - so more than 10 months with no night feeds.

HTH.

[JetLi]

Thanks scarlet - thats all very reassuring

[JetLi]

If I have oversupply would I be squirting milk when DD pulls off the breast or not neccessarily?