16wk DS sleeping 'too long'. Ow!

[WatermelonSugar]

DS is 16 weeks, ebf and sleeps pretty well at night - has his evening feed about 7.30, goes to sleep about 8.30 and goes through until morning with one feed in the night. He usually wakes between 3-4am for the night feed, but in the last week he's been going until 5-6am. This morning it was 6.30.

I realise how lucky we are that he sleeps so well at the moment, but I get really painfully engorged if he goes past about 5am, after that I'm just lying there feeling uncomfortable until he wakes up (so can't enjoy my good fortune at having a good sleeper!).

Any advice on the best options? I could either wake him up and feed him when I wake up uncomfortable, or perhaps express sometime in the night so I can go back to sleep until he wakes up naturally (I haven't tried expressing yet as there hasn't been any need to, but can see it might come in handy) .

And of course, I realise this will all go out the window when he hits the sleep regression!

Any ideas gratefully received.

Water, I'm not trained but think it will settle down after a few days. The problem with expressing is that you will continue to produce the milk and be engorged as your body will think LO needs it.

If you haven't tried expressing before it might be worth having a go at hand expressing. If you give a BFC, either local or on one of the helplines, they should be able to talk your through it.

Thanks Jilted, that's really helpful. Much obliged.

I agree, your body will get the hang of it in a little while, but when I was full like that I would hand express a little bit off just to make myself comfortable. Tbh, there wasn't much technique to it when I was that full, I just pressed on the top of my boob and hey presto!

If you don't express too much off your body won't think it's a full feed, so it shouldn't mean you continue to make enough to make you engorged.