no night feeds - effect on supply?

[MissChief]

got 7 wk old ds, wondering how/whether my supply will be affected if he sleeps thro or has bottle of expressed milk instead of breast in middle of night? he currently can go 8.30pm-6am with bottle at 2ish.

at first you will wake up with enormous sore, leaky boobs, desperate for baby to wake for a feed! but after a short while your supply and demand will kick in

agree with nailpolish, your milk will adjust. Congratulations on having a sleeping through baby so early by the way

thanks - maybe I'm being stupid but can it have a detrimental effect on my daytime supply if I don't do night-feed? worried won't have enough milk for him at other times if take such a long break (9-10 hrs) at night-time.

confession - he doesn't sleep thro yet!
dh sometimes gives him a huge bottle of expressed milk so that I can catch up on sleep as v anaemic at moment..

no it shouldnt affect the daytime supply. i was extremely lucky enough to have 2 babies who slept through when they were both about 6 weeks old and i had very sore leaky boobs for about 5 mornings or so, then my body just adjusted, and the supply during the day wasnt affected

DS slept through (11-7) from three nights old and my milk supply was always fine.

Unfortunately my periods came back at 12 weeks (might have been even earlier, but I was still bleeding from the birth until 10 weeks), and I attribute this to the lack of night feeds

I agree with nailpolish and others, it will take your body a few days to adjust but then your boobs will stop leaking at night and it won't affect your daytime supply. I have been breastfeeding without night feeds for 3 months now and no problems.

It depends how much you're feeding your baby in the daytime, to keep your supply up you'll need to let your baby suckle freely at the breast during the day and not use substitutes such as dummies.

If you can do that then your supply should be fine, but restricting nursing time in the day in favour of a dummy, and also having a baby who slept through at night has just caused major supply problems for my sister and her four week old baby.