Comfort sucking - should I get a dummy? Or give a bottle of water?

[Snowgirl1]

My DD is 5.5 weeks old and I'm bf. In the evenings she wants to be on my boobs loads and I'm sure a lot of it is just her comforting herself. It means my dh doesn't get involved in comforting her. Should I get a dummy or could it still cause nipple confusion at this stage? Alternatively, my mil suggested giving a bottle of cooled boiled water to give the baby something to suck - but surely this could fill dd up and mean she feeds less, which would affect my supply? Should I just let her use my boob?

Don't give her water, it's unnecessary and dangerous.

She'll need to suckle to stimulate your milk. It's supply/demand and comfort. Almost all babies tank up at night with cluster feeds.

Good luck, ignore mil. Well meaning but wrong.

Don't give water as it is not safe to give water to a exclusively milk fed baby. This is because it can cause hyponatraemia (an imbalance in the electrolytes in the blood) which is NOT a good thing. BM is approx 88% water but is balanced so doesn't cause problems.

It is very, very normal for young babies to want to be close to their mums and nurse lots in the evenings. Rather than trying to fight nature, go with it. If you need a break Daddy can cuddle her, rock her, shush her or do skin to skin (or all 4!) while you have a walk or take a bath. She'll let you know if she needs you

Thank you both - I thought I'd heard that babies shouldn't be given water, but didn't know why.

You can tell MIL next time she suggests it