Poll for mums who have breast fed a second child (dont necessarily have to have brest fed your first.....)

[popsycalindisguise]

Chatting to HV today about ds2 (10 months) hideous sleep and she said the following (I have already posted this on another thread so apologies...)

she said that she often gets stories of bad sleep from second time breast feeding mums.....very often first time round breast feeders' babies sleep comparably to bottle feeder and what her theory is is that in the night, we are concerned that baby wil wake older child and the easiest way yo calm a crying baby in the night is with the boob. If you are bottle feeding, other stuff is easioer rather than going downstars, faffing with bottles etc etc. So often, second children whi are breastfed get lots of sleep association with the boob as mum offers it immediately in the early days and this persists

This really applies to me.....

Anyone else?
Could this be the reason for my ds2's hideous sleep?

Tut at your lovely neighbours Tinker
Sorry popsy, I'm another twice-over b/f whose first child was the nightmare and whose second is a regular sleeping beauty in comparison.

Didn't happen like that for us. We have never bothered whether the baby woke the older kids, even now with the DTs. And so everyone has always slept through whichever child was crying.

I can see the theory - and am sure it applies in certain cases. DD was breastfed but I never, ever worried about her waking DS - still don't now that she is 19 months and getting the back molars. However I think I messed her daytime feeding up in the early days because if I was due to take DS somewhere or he was occupied or whatever I would give DD a quick snack to keep her going. And so she ended up a really snacking feeder by about 3 months and I had to really work on sorting her out.

I'm sure that me leaping out of bed at the slightest squeak to feed number two made him a bad sleeper, it has only just settled down (10 months) as I realised it didn't wake dd up. I think I was more concerned about dh getting a crap nights sleep as he works very long hours.

ha ha i could have written this - so yes, me too

No, for me DS1 was the worst sleeper by far. I did everything I thought I was suppose to do and ended up causing myself huge problems. With DS2 I just coslept from the beginning, and fed on demand through the night and had a far better time than with DS1. They were all bfed.

not read the thread but my experience is different.
B/fed all 3 of mine and dd (baby no 2) was the best sleeper, sleeping through at 9wks and never any trouble after that apart from a brief patch of non-milk-related waking at about 9mo.
DS1 still woke for milk at 6mo (when I knocked it on the head) and was always harder to settle to sleep; ds2 settled OK and slept through at 3mo tho it all went pear-shaped when he needed solids! But no, I was never worried about the baby waking the others as they are all really good sleepers (can hoover, sort clothes, even put light on in their rooms when asleep, bizarre I know).

ds2 is not a good sleeper but ds1 was an absolute dream. I think it's just the way they're born, though!

Popsy - what did she actually suggest though to help teh poor sleeping?

Not sure if it is....
But I can tell you that DD slept through the night 10PM to 7AM at 6 weeks and she was BF for 19 months ! Not bragging here but trying to prove that this is NOT necessarily the case.

Have you got a sling ? Can you work on dis-associating boob and sleep?

I b/f both dd1 and dd2. Still do b/f dd2 at night she's 1.3. Both girls sleep well, dd2 was the worst sleeper during the early days but she's fine now. I don't think she associates b/f with sleep, it's easier for me and I like the closeness of it. she goes down for her afternoon nap no probs, without being b/f.

I bottle fed ds1 and he was a fairly good sleeper.bf ds2(till he was 2 and a half) and still bf dd who is 17 months.Both nightmare at going to bed and sleeping,both slept with me(dd still is) and im pg with 4th so i'm fullyexpecting another nightmare as planning to bf again.