Do I need a chair in nursery to Breastfeed?

[HeidiHole]

PFB due in 6 weeks and I am planning to have a go at breastfeeding.

I've bought a cot that straps to the side of my bed www.bednest.com/
and was planning in my naivety that baby would wake in the night, I'd lift him into bed (super-king so loads of room even with DH) baby would feed, I'd put him back in crib and all without getting up! Whats all the fuss about :)

So my mum has shattered my dreams and said that if I don't actually get up and sit in a chair and do a "proper job" of feeding then he will just sort of half heartedly suck, and doze, and slurp and a feed will last 3 hours and I'll get sore nipples etc and no sleep. I'd not bought a chair for feeding because in the day I'd use the sofa, and at night I thought i'd be in bed.

Am I wildly optimistic/stupid? What she says makes sense but in that case why have I spent a fortune £200 specifically on a co-sleeping cot if I have to then get up to feed?

Ok....

Sometimes babies feed for comfort a lot - in the early days this can actually be a good thing as it helps stimulate your milk supply, as long as positioning is ok you shouldn't get sore.

For my first baby I sat upright in bed to feed, but second time I mastered feeding lying down much more quickly - guess which baby left me better rested

I would say that a chair absolutely unnecessary. I did exactly as you envisaged, BFing in bed at night and feeding on the sofa during the day - it worked perfectly well for us. In fact, DD is now 11 months and I still BF her in bed .

Tosh! You don't need a chair to feed. If you feel baby is just snacking by feeding lying down then just sit upright in bed or sit on edge of bed. Personally, I always sat up because I was nervous about co-sleeping and falling asleep on them etc but co-sleeping can be very safe and a bednest is a good compromise. The bednest is also good because sometimes they aren't actually hungry but just want to feel your touch. One of my 4 would wake but go straight back to sleep if you held his hand for a moment.

Oh and if you do end up feeling that a chair is a good idea then any old chair brought up from the kitchen will do esp if you drape a blanket over it.

Good luck. Don't expect the BF to be easy as pie. It may be but it can also be hard work in the beginning but if you can BF it will be worth it for you and baby. If it doesn't work out every day you did it will have been a bonus!

wow fast replies thank you! I will save my pennies and not buy a chair at the moment then, will give it a go in bed (good idea to sit up) first.

I had sore nipples lack of sleep and some of that half hearted dozing/sucking going on with DD.
I don't think it was the lack of a chair.

Your mum is talking rubbish wrong. Learning to feed lying down is a great skill to master as you don't need to fully wake up to feed. You will probably feel a bit nervous about doing it until your baby is a few weeks old, but you definitely don't need a chair in the nursery, just get a couple of cushions behind you in bed.

Babies don't just suckle to feed - they suckle to boost your supply, to trigger your immune system to make the right antibodies, and to build their relationship with you. You will spend the first few weeks feeling like a milk machine with baby permanently attached to you. And then it gets better and you find out why bfing a baby is so much easier than any of the other options.

How does your mum think women in parts of the world without chairs/nurseries manage to feed their children?

A cot that straps to your bed! I am thinking that that may make night time nappy changes a little inconvenient but perhaps not.

IME once you get a correct latch you can breastfeed in any position so you don't need a chair for night time. You may find it easier to sit up until you are more confident though.

Err I'm sure your mum means well, but that's nonsense. I do exactly as you were planning to, and DD feeds super quickly at night. The only times she's ever done as your mum says is during growth spurts etc., and that will happen whatever position you feed in! I don't know why you'd want to get out of bed and go to another room when one of the advantages of BF is the lack of hassle during the night. Good luck with everything!

I had one slow feeder and one who was very quick and efficient. Both fed in exactly the same way, either on the sofa or in bed. I did have a chair in the nursery (a rocking chair we had anyway) and never once used it.

Did your mother actually bf herself or is she just speculating?

The one thing you don't need is one of those poncey chairs. It's a chair

That bed thing otoh, wish I'd bought one

Sorry am on shitting shitphone

heidi your plan sounds exactly like what we did.
I actually was able to dooze whist feeding which makes the first weeks a bit more bearable when you can actually see through your eyes during the day good luck!

We looked at chairs, but cba to buy one, and I didn't find them very comfy, so took a dining chair up to ds' bedroom and ta dah! Money saved! Was better for me as I sat more upright. We also did the feeding thing in bed too.

For me a good investment was a very low footstool that I put my feet on when in said chair as that was way more comfy - raised my knees so I could get ds more comfy.

Also had a triangular wedge cushion for me what pregnant, but used that after for ds in bed, so I could sleep on my side, and he could feed from either breast (no wedge for one, wedge for the other) way tmi there!!

Your mum is wrong. In fact I think exhausted mums trying to sit up feeding in the middle of the night probably pose a bigger risk to the baby - of dropping baby, slumping over baby etc, than a properly positioned co-sleeping feeding position.

However I love my rocking chair in the nursery for occasional feeds in the day. It gives me the illusion of beatific motherhood, and is one of my favourite places to be. We feed anywhere though, and co-sleep at night.

whyme we had a cot bed side-car attached to our bed and nighttime nappy changes were very easy. DD only took up the top half of the cot bed, right next to me, so the bottom half was used for nappies, my nighttime drink and cake, and a night light so that we didn't disturb OH. I didn't have to get out of bed at all. Absolute bliss!

You are absolutely right! With my PFB I nearly drove myself to distraction by sitting up and staying awake for night feeds. With DS2 I co-slept and mostly I never even woke up fr feeds. Even now, at 2.11, he'll climb in for a feed without waking me. Co-sleeping is a wonderful thing.

i ahd a rocking chair that used to be my mums but to be honest i only used it a handful of times to feed in as i got a bedside cot thing as id had a c section and found it hard keeping on getting up in the night to pick him out of moses basket.

i did what you're saying you were going to do
that is to lift him over (without having to sit up!) and feed lying down(they showed me how in hospital as 1 of the midwives siad i would prob find it easier as id had a c section) and then pop him back into the cot.
I did this with my second aswell.

As to whether it stopped me sleeping or made them not suck so well, in my experience it helped me sleep as when i was confident with it all i was able to drop off whilst feeding and then pop him back when i roused (or just leave him there as he was perfectly safe and couldnt fall out/not too hot etc)
they always seemed to have a good feed, so they must have been sucking well.
I used to feed from the middle 'side' first then wind (only for the first week or so as after that i found they didn't really need winding at night) and then swap over to the outside 'side' and thats when i would drop off to sleep.

Bf in the night not only stimulates the hormone to increase your supply but also stimulates the hormone which helps you get back to sleep quicker hence why bf lying down and safe cosleeping actually helps you to get more sleep.

Having said all this i would prob spend the first night or 2 sitting up to feed just while you are both getting used to it. (make sure your partner if you have one wakes up with you so you don't drop off while sitting up! He can change the nappy!)
(on that point unless ds's nappy was dirty or particularly soaked i didn't change it everyfeed in the night)

make sure you always get a good latch at every feed as this will help prevent sore nipples and use lots of lansonhal (sp?). After the first couple of days if it carries on hurting for more than a couple of seconds or so then break the latch and try again.

Sorry this was such an essay! Hope i was of some help, as i say this has been my experience but obv all babies are different.

whoops there were no replies when i started writing mine

Either you sit up in bed with the TV on subtitles and feed at night, or you sit on the sofa ditto downstairs in the day and feed.

If you have a toddler you have CBBies on quietly, learn to feed and read or discuss Duplo.

You certainly do not need to spend money on an extrachair

I've got a chair in my DS's room, it is not a specific nursing chair but it is very comfortable and I have spent many hours of my life sitting in it over the past 18 months.

Make sure you've got lots of cushions etc for wedging when you are on the sofa, I ended up with a bad back / shoulders until I made sure I was properly supported all around when I sat down to start a feed (DS was not an efficient feeder, 40 minutes minimum every feed until he was about 6 months old!).

Good luck :)

What I found very useful was one of those L-shaped pillows (Do they still make them, this was over 10 yrs ago now)? It gave just the right support for feeding in bed and was useful for the DSs to lie on when I was feeding on the sofa so my arms didn't ache, especially as they got bigger. A normal pillow/cushion would have done for sofa feeding though.

I just got a nursing chair/glider + stool second hand at a bargain price and it's a life saver to calm DS when he has his colicky time. I tried it by chance at a friends house and decided I needed to get one because it worked do well to stop him crying. I also co-sleep and feed lying down at night and would not have bought it just for bf but now that Ive got one I use it to bf too.

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thank you everyone for taking the time to reply. i now have more confidence to try just with the feeding in bed. My mum did BF but I guess she just got up to do it and so can't imagine a different way.

Your plan sounds great Heidi I ache for the days when I managed that with my son

Get yourself a cheap bolster/expensive breastfeeding pillow because support is always important - you can hurt your back if you feed in an uncomfortable position for a long time. I never managed to learn how to feed lying down so when feeding DS I sat up in bed with lots of pillows behind me (he's 18m, still can't work it out!)

I am 5', and have found that it is very difficult for me to feed in a chair as my feet don't reach the floor and I end up with backache. Often i sit cross-legged on the floor but at home a footstool or upturned box saves this problem

Read "the womanly art of breastfeeding" which will tell you that you have so far made all the right decisions, which is nice to know! and good luck!

Agree with everyone else that you're on the right track Heidi and hey, if it doesn't work for you, you can do something else later down the line.

Mum's are great, but remember that most (not all admittedly) come from a very different breastfeeding approach. Mine was of the 'ten minutes on each breast' school of thought and the 'you'll spoil them if you pick them up' camp.

Hope things go well for you, there is plenty of support on here for you.