Breastfeeding and newborn sleep

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We have an adorable 1 week old and the last week we’ve expectedly had very little sleep but I’m looking for advice from breastfeeding mothers and how they maximised their sleep with their husbands.

Firstly, our baby will not settle in his snuzpod or bassinet ( and when he does it’s luck of the draw and not consistent). He will only sleep in our arms which means one of us is staying awake whilst the other parent sleeps and holds the baby. It is really sweet and adorable and of course I’m very empathetic to the fact he’s been in a cosy womb for the last 9 months. However, it’s not sustainable and I would feel much safer knowing he’s on his back in his crib.

It would be great if my husband could do a ‘shift’ of 21:00-1:00 and wake me up only if baby is hungry but a lot of the time baby is constantly rooting even after a feed. He seems to want to be latched onto my boob all the time and so it’s hard to tell if he is genuinely hungry. Of course I never want to risk it so if he shows cues, my husband will pass him to me but sometimes he will just suck for a bit and fall asleep at the boob which makes me think he’s just doing it for comfort. How can you tell the difference?

I would say in a 24 hr period I am probably getting 4-5 hours of sleep. Around 2-3 of this is in the night and then the other two are opportunity naps when my husband holds him or we’ve managed to settle him in bassinet.

The deprivation hasn’t become unbearable just yet but I am mindful that it can make me quite teary and more sensitive. Added to the fact I had major blood loss during labour and so my iron levels are still recovering so I’m even more prone to the tiredness at the moment.

The wanting to be latched all the time is very normal behaviour as he’s stimulating your supply. The first 8 weeks of breastfeeding are relentless but it does get better, I promise, and that’s coming from someone who had to triple feed for 5 months.

The best way to maximise your sleep is to cosleep with the baby but this is safer if it’s just you and baby in the bed. I appreciate that’s not ideal and you said you want to be sleeping with your husband but these early days are all about survival and doing what you need to do to cope. It won’t last forever

I Expressed enough for DH to give one feed during the night.

I think that’s all the sleep I got for the first three weeks of EBF my 2 DC, it doesn’t last & after a few weeks they become more efficient at feeding, of course cluster feeding goes on longer than a few weeks but it’s not every feed.

Have a few bed days (just stay all day in bed, you won’t get chance if you have another) it’s not the same as sleep, but I was convinced it used to make me feels more rested when sleep deprived

Totally normal. Feed and comfort on demand. Baby will be going through tremendous growth and needs to be close. Sleeping with baby saved me.

Cosleeping following guidelines is a common option to get more sleep. If you don’t want to, you could feed lying down asleep with your husband awake and keeping an eye on the baby.
You can also try and keep him awake while feeding so that he feeds a bit longer and sleeps longer, but the first two weeks are pretty much like this.

Are you using a swaddle? If not, get yourself a velcro one and swaddle baby, put on boob for feed (while baby is swaddled already) then carefully lower into the bassinet/Next to Me cot with some white noise playing.

My DH gave a bottle at around 7pm so I could sleep and then would bring baby up to me at 10 or 11pm which is when I'd do nappy, swaddle, boob, cot. If you have a pump, or are happy to give a small bottle of formula each evening, it will make the world of difference getting a few hours unbroken sleep before the overnight shift begins again.

That sounds entirely norm. Babies need to be on the breast very frequently to get your supply going. We did it where my DH stayed up with baby til 1ish whilst I slept (from 8pm), often he would need to bring baby for a feed but at least I could stay in bed. Then I did the rest of the night. Try the shifts, it might work for you. Your DH will get more experienced with when he can sooth baby without boob. I slept just me and baby in a double bed for the first few months, and did side lying breastfeeding. Then it was fine jf I fell asleep whilst feeding as she was lying down in the mattress: it’s much safer to do that then to sit up and baby fall down, particularly on a sofa or chair. You don’t have to pump or give formula, I never did, seemed more hassle to me. Cosleeping will get you more sleep!

Safe cosleeping and dummies

I'm not advising anything but I can tell you what worked for me. Especially with babies 2 & 3 when I just couldn't afford to be sleep deprived during the day.

I would spend the evening breastfeeding on the sofa while my husband brought me stuff, then I would go to bed with the baby - husband slept elsewhere.
I would lie on my side with the baby latched on and feed/doze throughout the night.

In the morning I would feed the baby in bed, then hand over to my husband for a couple of hours so I could go back to bed.
IME babies tend to have their most settled period first thing in the morning, whereas in the evening/night they just want to feed.

You really do need to trade off nights. At 1 week old, your Dh isn’t work, so he can do better that 9pm to 1am. I assume you don’t have other children, so you literally start going to bed at like 6pm, whenever the first evening feed is. Your Dh can take him all cosied up for a walk. My Dh used to put ours in a sling and walk in circles around the lounge watching a series. He’d do that literally from 7pm-1am with a break at 10pm for a feed. Dh developed his whole business that he now runs staying up late with our eldest in the sling.

Your Dh needs to learn to comfort him and sort him out so you can sleep. It’s non-negotiable. I wouldn’t be jumping at every sign he might be hungry. If he’s crying, yes, if he’s just awake, your Dh can hang out with him and let you sleep. Assuming he’s home during the day, likewise you sleep between feeds. Hand baby off and go to bed as much as you can.

It won’t be like this forever. But it will be like this for the first 4-6 weeks. You need to be a team.

My little granddaughter is two weeks old tomorrow. Ds sends Dil off to bed at 8pm and he stays downstairs with baby until about 11 when he takes her up for a feed and they all go to bed. Dil feeds in the night then hands baby straight back to ds who does the nappy and settles baby back off to sleep. They have deliberately decided not to let her comfort suck on the boob, milk supply is good and baby is putting on weight. They are desensitising her to the crib slowly but surely, and when I was round there earlier she managed two hours in it - massive difference to last week when she couldn’t manage 5 minutes! It could just be luck though, they are all different.

That’s very normal for that stage and will get easier. But for now, long nights, lots of feeding, especially from late evening onwards for a number of hours, are very normal. I coslept with my first after the first couple of weeks, when it was clear she would not settle for love nor money in a Moses basket. It was a human or nothing for her, and she wanted to suck all the time, which cosleeping enabled. And I swaddled my third, which did seem to work well in getting him into his Moses basket. I’d tried with my other two but never been shown how to really do it properly so they’d wriggle out. But doing the night in shifts and just making it through as you can is so normal (albeit so hard) in the early weeks, especially when establishing breastfeeding. Sounds like you’re doing well and understanding your baby’s needs, given he’s in his fourth trimester and just wants closeness.

You have asked how to tell the difference between comfort and actual feeding. You can’t really. Breastfeeding is more than just feeding. They are comforted by sucking.

This is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read “They have deliberately decided not to let her comfort suck on the boob”. So they aren’t allowing a newborn comfort, thats cruel.

What utter rubbish 😂 my granddaughter has more cuddles, kisses, and love than any baby I’ve ever met!!