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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Feeding laying down and dozing

36 replies

OpheliasWeepingWillow · 01/03/2012 23:37

Baby sleeps in cot by the bed but at night I feed her in bed with me lying down. Last night I fell asleep twice and woke up in horror in case I had squished her.

Anyone else sleep when feeding? Tips to stay awake? Do I need to go back to feeding siting up?

OP posts:
Alibabaandthe40nappies · 01/03/2012 23:40

The joy of feeding lying down and co-sleeping is that you can sleep while you feed.

Don't drink, or smoke, or have a vast duvet over yourselves.

Breastfeeding mothers don't squash their babies, you will be fine :)

Gwlondon · 01/03/2012 23:46

I sleep when feeding most the time. Have done it for 7 months in the day but only two months at night. So long as I stay on my side I have never been worried. Once I was on my back and then got worried when I realised DS was beside me. I have one arm sticking out IYKWIM that my head rests on.

DS is 10 months now. I love it and am so glad it was shown to me, especially napping in the day.

Loopymumsy · 02/03/2012 00:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OpheliasWeepingWillow · 02/03/2012 07:40

Thank you all! Still not very confident about it and will try and stay awake but good to know that dropping off is normal...

I do push the duvet to the bottom of the bed and make sure that DH is far far away (big bed)

OP posts:
NoodieRoodie · 02/03/2012 22:18

This is how I get through the nights, I'm in the middle facing DS and Dh is behind me. I have learnt how to wrap myself in the duvet so it can't cover DS and have a short fleecy dressing gown on to keep the top half of me warm.

This means that DS sleeps through from 11 to 6 ish but whenever he stirs, I stir and latch him back on. I was far more nervous in the early days but DS is now 17 wks and it feels very natural

SweetLikeChocolate · 03/03/2012 00:12

I did this with a 3 babies and am stil doing it with dd at 4 months. We are not co sleeping but when she stirs for food I just pop her in to the bed and feed her. I often drop of whilst enjoying the snuggle. The best thing is that they get much less wind feeding this way so it is great for colicky babies. I dont generally need to burp her after so she can go back in her crib when we rouse.

peachsmuggler · 03/03/2012 07:59

If you put the duvet under the baby's bottom, then over you, you won't have to worry about pulling it up over you. I just wear a think dressing gown to keep my top half warm. Sleep on your side with your arm above the baby's head, making it impossible to roll and sort of curl your legs under them. It really is a great way for you and them to get the maximum amount of sleep!

upsydaisysexstylist · 03/03/2012 08:41

long sleeved tops you can hoik your boobs over are excellent for keeping your back warm and allow you to have your arm over the top of the duvet

showtunesgirl · 03/03/2012 11:01

I have the fleece nightgowns from Primark. They conveniently button down at the front to get your boob out but you are snuggly warm too!

Iggly · 03/03/2012 13:17

Lying down feeding is the only way I survive at the moment! (DD 3 months DS 2.5 years). I did the same with DS until 3 months but should have carried on. Will probably keep it up until 5-6 months with DD.

nickelhasababy · 03/03/2012 14:24

i sleep while she's feeding.
we lie down, i latch her on, and then i fall asleep.
i usually have one arm wrapped around her and one arm by my head, so she stays in a good position.

Gwlondon · 03/03/2012 19:13

When it is a bit chilly I wear a cotton cardigan to bed and have a small pram blanket for DS. Like nickel said I have one hand round DS bum or back to keep him on his side.

organiccarrotcake · 03/03/2012 20:52

Lots of studies have been done on breastfed babies in bed with their mothers, and it's very interesting that they respond to their babies quite differently to anyone else, including daddy. This is only the case with breastfeeding mothers - formula feeding mothers respond like other people and it is considered to be unsafe to bedshare with a small baby if a mother is formula feeding.

What happens is that the baby and mother go into a similar sleep cycle to one another, where the mother is waking more often to match her baby's sleep cycle and the baby gets in tune with the mother's breathing. This is seen as a really important safety feature for the baby. Because humans are born extremely prematurely (compared to other mammals) their breathing system can be not very effective and they can rely on regulating their breathing with the mother. It is thought that some babies who die from SIDS have got particularly immature breathing systems which were not able to kick-start themselves when asleep. Formula fed babies can be more filled up with hard to digest formula, and therefore may not be waking in a natural sleep cycle, and this is one of the reasons why, it is thought, FF babies are around twice as likely to die from SIDS.

So by having your baby in bed not only are you able to feed more easily, making it more likely that breastfeeding will work for you, which in itself is highly protective against SIDS, you are also giving additional protection from SIDS by your breathing supporting your baby's breathing.

Regarding rolling onto your baby, as I said at the beginning breastfeeding mothers respond differently to their babies to other people and they naturally, even in deep sleep, form a protective form around their baby. If the mother is unmedicated, hasn't drunk alcohol, etc, ie her brain function is normal (as much as it can be with a newborn!) it is virtually unknown for a mother to roll on her baby and even if she did she will be so aware of him that she will immediately wake up and all will be fine.

Keeping duvets and pillows away is important and you've got some good tips here on that. Also making sure that you baby can't fall out of bed or fall between the bed and the wall, or get trapped in any way. Safe bedsharing also assumes that neither you nor your partner smoke, at all, even away from the baby.

Going back to the sleep cycles. While a BFing mother will wake more frequently to feed her baby, hormones she makes when she feeds make her sleepy (one of the reasons you're finding it hard to stay awake... other than it being the middle of the night of course!) and the baby gets those hormones, too, so is more likely to drop off again. Studies found that despite the more frequent wakings, if the mother just goes with the flow, lets the baby feed and as the baby gets bigger and the mother more confident she can drop off to sleep once the baby is latched, in this case the quality of sleep the mother gets is much better than a non-BFing mother. So in fact, nature has set it all up pretty nicely :)

Libramum · 03/03/2012 21:54

I too found sleeping while feeding saved my sanity and I slept better than before giving birth! Only problem is now, 4 months after giving up breastfeeding / cosleeping, I still wake keep grabbing my husband in the night - desperately looking for my baby. I stay asleep, but he doesn't.

tangledupinblue2 · 03/03/2012 22:26

organiccarrotcake that's such a great post Smile

Wish I'd known all that with my first DS... would have been massively more chilled out about having him sleep next to me.

OP, I have had 3 co sleeping babies, and have now mastered the art of falling back to sleep next to DS3 instantly after he starts night feed(s) Grin

Spagbolagain · 04/03/2012 08:25

I have found myself doing this. DS is 7 wks. Do I need to get a bed rail. Do you have one, if so what sort?

OpheliasWeepingWillow · 04/03/2012 08:47

cake brilliant post!

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BelinaTheChicken · 04/03/2012 08:55

I recommend the primark onesies of feeding lying down, lovely and cosy, and zip down the front so only one boob every has to get cold Grin

this is useful

OpheliasWeepingWillow · 04/03/2012 08:57

OMG I even have a secret onsie I could use...

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MishiMoshi · 04/03/2012 09:03

What a brilliant post organiccarrotcake. I coslept and breastfed twice. It took ages to get the skills to breastfeed Dd1 lying down, but Dd2 I was doing it right from when the milk came in.

I switched the babies from one side of me to the other throughout the night depending of which side felt more full Grin . We have a huge super long bed and I know what people say about the breastfeeding mothering instinct, but dh acquired new instincts too. The entire rest of the time we haven't had a newborn cosleeping, he is an absolute snoring arse, dead to the world. But with a newborn he naturally took up a teeny tiny smidgen of the bed at the far end and if touched while asleep by me, recoiled away!! Worth having another baby just to regain my considerate bed fellow Wink

Dd2 coslept and seemed to feed throughout the night - while I was mostly sleeping - until 15 months when we moved house and I popped her in a cot while I unpacked one evening and she stayed there and slept 12 hour straight without needing a feed. Perfect end to our cosleeping and feeding while asleep experience.

organiccarrotcake · 04/03/2012 11:00

Thank you Blush :)

LOL @ your considerate husband, mishi Grin. Yes, that's not to say that other people are not aware of the baby, just that the biology of a breastfeeding mother means that this happens automatically, whereas with other people it doesn't necessarily happen and the mechanism can't be relied on totally.

What a lovely story of how co-sleeping ended :) It can work out so perfectly - we tend to only hear the stories of where there are problems, which is much less common than lovely transitions as you have had.

BelinaTheChicken · 04/03/2012 11:07

Grin at secret onesie, however knackered I am I've been making sure to change out of it first thing after an embarrasing early morning encounter with the electric man coming to read the meter

SunSoakedStone · 04/03/2012 13:40

Really, it's ok. Use a light blanket while you are feeding and sleep! You won't squash her x

OpheliasWeepingWillow · 05/03/2012 05:43

Ok back to the drawing board on this one - last night followed all the guidelines including the onsie and woke up to find I had actually gone, found the duvet in my sleep and pulled it over the baby and myself. It's only because she cried that I noticed Confused so... No more sleeping and feeding for me.

OP posts:
MishiMoshi · 05/03/2012 09:47

Ophelia. To be honest, i wasn't absolutely strict with the no duvet thing. I know it's guidelines and is important, but it's not like duvets are the work of the devil, it's to guard against over heating. I figured, lying next to me, I was a good judge of when baby was too hot or too cold.
When I was a newborn and slept inbetween my parents (they were tendy hippy parents Wink way ahead of their time) my mother thought I'd be too cold with just sharing their duvet so I had a baby duvet doubled up on top of me too! And my mother always worried over my cold feet so I had socks on too, plus a vest and mittens, in addition to my babygro....
Now, the reasons for not overheating cannot be under estimated, but I used my own judgement on this - remembering that I was bringing down risks by cosleeping. So while I didn't deliberately pull the duvet up around us, if it was chilly and I did it automatically, I didn't worry. And we used a summer weight goose feather 4tog duvet throughout the winter for this very reason. Just in case I forgot!
Unless you mean you pulled the duvet over baby's face? In which case, just ditch the duvet completely for a few months??