Relationship between feeding and sleeping causing problems

[doricpatter]

I have an oversupply of milk which I'm trying to deal with but DD (5 months) is an obsessive feeder and demands to be fed to sleep.

For example, she wants a nap just now but is showing hunger cues (chewing hands, shouting, kicking legs and bashing me with her head) and it's not practical to go out in the pushchair just now, and she won't sleep in it in the house. I'm fairly sure she doesn't need fed as often as she asks and because she only naps for half an hour at a time she needs 4 or 5 or 6 naps some days. Then with feeds on top of that she's spending ages at the breast.

Any tips on separating the two to help me calm my supply down a bit?

I don't have any advice I'm afraid.

At this age, DD had her feeds when she woke from the nap, unless she was paticularly fractious and then I'd try feeding her to sleep (but it was food time anyway as she had cried through her nap). She napped for only 30 mins probably up to 7/8 months, maybe longer. In the last few weeks as she's learnt to go off by herself, her naps times has increased considerably so she often has a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day atm.

I have no experience of oversupply, how is it causing problems for you. I've heard expressing a little to get off the foremilk can help, although shouldn't take too many days to fix. Someone else should come along and give better info, but wanted you not to feel about about 30 mins naps. Its actually really normal at this age

Thanks for your reply.

I'm OK with the short naps - DS was the same, it's not a major thing and gives us lots of flexibility in the day so can be helpful I guess.

The oversupply causes her to be gassy, unsettled and sore with explosive diarrhoeic nappies. She's gone from the 25th centile to above the 91st . I've had problems for months now, and I'm struggling to get a balance between expressing to let her get to the hindmilk but avoiding increasing my supply - because she's not truly demand fed - ie she's not just feeding for hunger - satisfying her with hindmilk doesn't increase the time between feeds. So I think that's what's stopping the techniques I'm using to deal with the oversupply from being effective.

I think if you definitely have over-supply issues, then block feeding (eg feeding from the same breast for several feeds in a row) is supposed to be the way to go. Sure someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly tho.

I agree with narmada that block feeding is the way to go, then you can still feed her to sleep.

I think she's still demand fed, even if not every feed is about hunger - most babies feed to sleep and feed for comfort too. It's only not demand feeding if you refuse her feeds.

My ds only naps for about 40 minutes at a time too, but often in the afternoon if I get to him quick enough I can feed him back to sleep and he'll nap for another 40 minutes - I sometimes do this 2 or 3 times to get a decent afternoon nap!

Thanks all.

I am also block feeding and have been for months, making adjustments as we go. The hospital feeding advisor has given me a few suggestions and another few days doing both expressing some foremilk and block feeding, then apparently if no improvement we try "other things".

I feel that the amount of feeding she wants stimulates more milk than she needs - does that make sense?

Hopefully she'll just grow out of it sometime SOON!

How long are you block feeding for each time?

Do you have a partner who can help settle her to sleep without feeding? We did this at bedtime at around 5 months as he was sleeping poorly. I fed ds on the sofa before bed, then DP settled him in the bedroom with a dummy and rocking - be prepared for a lot of crying though and it taking a long time at first!

Yes I would also second moonunitalpha about getting your DP to settle your baby at night. It didn't seem to matter that he had replaced the nipple with another prop - e.g., rocking and pacing - our DD still slept better after we had worked specifically at that sucking-to-sleep association.