Trying to extend Daughters sleep periods a little - please help!

[tenacityflux]

Hi - My DD is 6 weeks old and we're doing ok but had to combine bottle with breast from two weeks as unrelated stress caused my milk to dry up and she lost a lot of weight (6 13 birth weight, down to 6 2 two weeks later) she is now nearly 8 lb and doing well, we are enjoying breast feeding but she will feed for a very long time which is ok in the day but at night is getting very hard - she usually goes down ok ish in the evening and will sleep from about 8 till 12 but then wakes for a feed at 2 and is taking longer and longer to feed and settle - until 4 last night - then wakes again at 5.30 and feeds and won't really go back to sleep for the rest of the day unless in her sling and I'm walking around or for short spells waking with a scream. I top up with bottles at night and always after a breast feed, not instead of, but as she is getting more hard to settle and doesn't nap so much, I am getting very tired and sometimes when she is screamy, it is very hard People have suggested giving her bottles only at night and with more in to make her feel fuller quicker, she now has between 2 and 3 oz a time only; I can't express more than 1 oz day so it would be formular - sometimes I think this would be better as my breasts don't get much of a break to re-charge and so maybe she would get a better feed after a longer rest over night, and is she slept more, it would also help - but I also don't want to loose the improvement in breast feeding and my milk all together. What a long post, sorry!Wish I knew a good way to settle her, have tried sush pat for hours without much effect!

i was unable to breast feed due to lack of milk coming in maybe you could use formula of a night and this could make her more content

i had to stop as i was always on the go and it turned out my ds was hardly able to feed at all when on the breast

so i had to switch to formula and he settled straight away as my supply was not enough and he was continuously hungry

hopefull someone else can come along with alternative advise as i clearly had to switch for simple reason iwa snt producing

good luck though it is tiring and stresssful but do what is best for you and baby breast feeding doesnt work for eveyone and if you have to swap it doesnt mean you have failed you have managed the first crucial 6 weeks and baby will benefit and thrive no matter how you feed but if you are unable to and baby isnt feeding well then do what you have to do for both of you

Formula won't really make her feel fuller, unfortunately. It doesn't work like that. I wonder if she's probably crying so much because she's involved in some sort of developmental/growth spurt? I find babies are often noisiest when this sort of thing is going on. Growing is Hard Work!

But reading your post again, it sounds generally like you need to get your milk supply up, which she seems to be working quite hard to help you to do. The way people typically do this is by drinking plenty of fluids, pumping as much as possible (might be worth borrowing or hiring a better pump from the NCT or local hospital), getting baby on the breast as much as possible, getting other people running around after you a bit generally so you don't have to concentrate on anything else, that sort of thing. Only give a bottle to her if you're all about to go nuts (freeze expressed milk for the time being). Eat very well yourself.

Pre-war advice would also be to have a beer (pref Guiness or Mackesons) and some mums report very favourable results from this. I've never heard of this doing any harm to the baby, as your liver will process the alcohol beforehand. Livers are useful like that.

After a few days, things may well improve a lot, and by 12 weeks you might be very happy with how things are going. It would be possible to get into a situation where you don't need bottles at all - this also saves work and energy for you in the medium term, gives more pleasant nappies, helps you keep slim and of course means your baby gets minor illnesses less often. All these little things boost morale in tired mummies. So keep going if you can.

It sounds like the NCT bf helpline would be a terrific place to get help and support as they are great at helping mums with this. Ring 0300 330 0771, 8am to 10pm, seven days a week.

Cross posts and wise word from butterfly!

So many of us have been there - you are not alone! It can be sorted!

good advice from other posters about resting & getting your supply up. ds is 6 weeks old too & went through a few days last wk where he cried alot & wanted to feed pretty much all the time, as said, i think it was a growth spurt.

re settling your dd, i found white noise & swaddling really helped with my dd & ds, may sound strange but ds will quickly calm & nod off to the sound of my hairdryer! also have you thought about a dreamfeed at night? i did them with dd & have just started with ds, it means they r fed but you don't have the problem of settling them back to sleep!

it can be really hard at this stage, it does get easier! you're doing really well.

Tenacity I posted a similar question on the breast and bottle feeding topic not long ago (not about supply problems, but struggles to settle DS at night after feeding) and was almost unanimously reassured that introducing formula won't make a baby sleep longer.

I would agree that your DD is probably going through a growth spurt - would you feel able to wait 2-3 days and if things are still bad, revisit the idea of giving her formula in the night? You may see an improvement in that time, and if not you've only lost another 48-72 hours...

I think that some of the BF experts on here would worry that giving formula at night would spell the beginning of the end of BF unless you are very determined and pump lots, as your breasts basically won't be being stimulated to make milk, so you may find your day time supply diminishes. I don't know very much about this, but consensus seems to be that the later you introduce formula, the less at risk your supply is, so even if you can only manage a few extra days you'll be preserving your supply a bit. If you post on breast and bottle feeding someone will be able to give you more info!

I want to try dream feeding but I guess I am scared that if I wake her to feed her she won't go to sleep - there have been a few nights when (well, once) when she went down at 7 and slept till 5 am, so I guess part of me has the vain hope she will do so again! Also, people say never wake a sleeping baby - but perhaps If I fed her at 10.30? I try feeding her breast only each time, but either she will suck until I am unable to see any more milk or until she starts coming on and off my breast, looses concentration, and then 5 mins later be demanding more - no matter how often I try her on the breast she won't sleep until she's had two oz in a bottle and of course at 3 am it gets hard to resist, MIL baby sat last night so we could have some time out and she took her again at 5 when she woke and of course 'I gave her a bottle and she went right off, she must have been hungry still' which are 2 hours of breast feeding does make you feel I wish I could express more but I get so little I keep thinking it would be easier for her to have that oz than me pump it, but I will try - again, hard to build time into your day to do it, especially with sore breasts! I have tried both a breast feeding support group and NCT help line - they are help full must try again. With co sleeping, I do put her in our bed when poor sleep deprived husband goes to work at 5.30, and we have a feed and a sleep, but I just fear that he will roll on her at night as he is a restless sleeper, how do you put her so she is safe and won't fall out? The HV's all throw their hand up in horror if I suggest it, 'she'll never sleep alone/you'll kill her' etc - must try the beer thing, though typically I hate beer!

Ignore HVs - they're not taking the science into account. I've had a conversation about this on another thread as well, and also done a lot of co-sleeping myself.

Kick DH out of bed for a night or two if necessary. By all means co-sleep with DD. She won't fall out or get squashed because your body will instinctively surround hers to protect her. Let her suck as much as she likes, whenever she likes. Just make sure she doesn't have too much in the way of bedding on her, because you don't want her to overheat - they always recommend one layer less than you.

Borrow a proper pump too, not just the normal ones you can buy from Mothercare or wherever.

Give it 2 or 3 days and then see how you get on. You can do it!

tenacity I think a dreamfeed is definitely worth a shot - given the lengths of time she's sleeping you might be lucky enough to only get one waking after the dream feed, so even if she takes a while to settle it's not a total disaster. After all, if it goes horribly wrong, just don't do it again! My ds doesn't dream feed, he wakes fully, but is always very easy to settle again afterwards.

Co sleeping can work very well (I don't do it, as I sleep incredibly heavily), ignore HV and do your own research if you're interested in trying it. Although if it means not sharing a bed with your DH for ages, perhaps you're better off looking into alternatives.

if you can bear to put up with a couple of nights of the constant feeding, you may find that she stimulates your supply enough that you don't need to top up - again, if things don't improve in a few days you can always go back to topping up.

www.mamanana.com/sleeper®-bassinet-ca-21.html?osCsid=e89f3025b236cf09159f745a4c12eb59

There is a special three sided cot you can put by the bed for co-sleeping - this might be an option. I think I have seen this sort of thing elsewhere as well.

Just noticed that they won't ship it to the UK, but a simple crib would probably do the job as well.

IKEA do a cheap cot that you can take the side off and is a good height to match up to an normal bed, they could have designed it that way - godsend as it makes a protected space for the LO and you can feed without having to get out of bed (or even really wake up).

Brilliant, iamaleaf. French one cost a packet, anyway.