Breastfed babies who sleep right through the night......

[CuppaTeaJanice]

DD is nearly 4 months old. She normally wakes a couple of times during the night for a feed, which is fine, she's in a bedside cot so it's easy to lean across, feed her and go back to sleep. There have been a couple of nights recently, and I guess this will happen more and more as she gets older, when she has slept for maybe 7 hours, and I've then woken up with a couple of solid painful rocks strapped to my chest. They are so uncomfortable that I've had to wake DD up to feed her in the middle of the night.

Obviously it would be lovely to have a full night's sleep for the first time in months! But how can I do that if I'm going to get engorged breasts which will wake me up? Is it a problem that will go away once my body gets used to longer gaps between feeds at night? Will that affect supply during the day?

Anyone have any advice on the transition between bf at night and starting to sleep through?

Cuppa as your baby does this more regularly your body will adjust and the engorgement should go. If you are engorged I would leave DD asleep and express some, just enough to make you comfortable. Some Mums prefer to do this by hand or you can use a pump if you prefer. Just try to express a little though as if you express lots your body will think that it still needs to produce lots each night.

Not sure on if it will affect your supply but hopefully someone will be along soon who knows

Sleep on a towel. Your boobs will gradually adjust. As long as you're still feeding on demand/cue during the day, it shouldn't affect your supply. I really hope you're lucky enough to skip it, but 4 month sleep regression could be looming, so enjoy any sleep-throughs now! DS was also sleeping beautiful long stretches up until 16 weeks, but now at 24 weeks, still wakes upwards of 5 times a night.

Your body will adapt over a few days once it becomes regular. However, be warned. My prevously good sleeper who would manage 4-6 hour stretches suddenly started waking every hour when she hit the 6 month spurt. It didn't last long and we were back to peaceful nights within a couple of weeks. I just thought it best to warn you so you don't panic if it happens. It did come as a bit of a shock.

My DC3 has just started sleeping longer at night - started happening at around the 4 month mark too. So no '4 month sleep regression' for us - only improvement!

She's now 5 months and, at the mo, only wakes once per night, at around 2-3am, so sleeps for a good 6 or 7 hours from going to bed. She is exclusively breastfed & my boobs have now adjusted to it - like you I was waking very engorged, but its all calmed down now. On the odd occasion that she does wake more frequently at night, my milk supply seems to be enough to keep her happy anyway.

Well done - you're obviously doing something right for her to sleep a nice long stretch at night! make the most of it - these babies are right pickles & change their routines at the drop of a hat!!

I think I jinxed it by starting this thread!! She's woken up every hour since 2 this morning.

My 6.5-month-old DS sleeps through the night (last night he did 6.30pm to 6.30am). We had a blip last week, after coming back from vacation unsettled him, and he needed at least five comfort nursing sessions throughout the night, but 95% of the time he sleeps 10-12 hours. He's not an easy baby to get to sleep. It often takes us fifteen minutes of rocking, or nursing to sleep, and sometimes we have to repeat the process, but he mostly settles himself these days upon waking.

Case in point: last night he stirred at 11pm. Murmured for about thirty seconds, fussed for another twenty, then twiddled his left foot, twiddled his ear, and off he dozed again.

My DS is 4 and a half months, ebf and started sleeping through 2 weeks ago, for 12-13 hours. Before that he was having one night feed at 3/4am. Jilted's advice is what I've been doing. If I wake up and am really uncomfortable I go and express a little, just so I'm more comfortable. I wouldn't wake up DS.

My boobs are still their fullest in the morning, sometimes I express off a bit after his morning feed to save up for freezing to use on the days I'm at work.

After a few nights of solid sleep, DS woke up at about 4am crying for a few nights. I didn't feed him, just put the mobile on and he went straight back to sleep.

Good luck tonight!

as posted above your body should eventually adjust. However, my dd is 12 months and usually feeds just once in the night but last night slept through for the second time ever and I woke up all swollen and leaky! Hope u get a better night tonight!