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?

My PFB is 19 days today. Nursery all kitted out. Got a glider as part of the furniture package.

Total times used thus far.......

Zero

I have to say as a long term extended breast feeder, I LOVED my nursing chair, no I didnt NEED - but it was the best £100 I ever spent, I pratically slept in it at the end of my second pregnancy, I did co-sleep and feed there as well, but it was lovely to cosy up in our special chair.

I didnt feed in it at night mind you, just in the day time.

I think a chair in the nursery is essential but it can be any chair, and in reality you probably will I only use it when the baby actually sleeps in their own room - and if your lucky they will sleep through the night by then! I wasn't so lucky and my chair has been well used!

I think your early days plan is a good one, you will get much more sleep if you feed lying down in bed!!!

My chair was in my room, didn't leave a lot of space mind you!

Your plan sounds great. I would ignore your mum, mine was a breastfeeder but thought you should only allow ten mins each side, every three hours - preferably four

Having said that, I never managed to feed lying down. I'm not really sure why - I did have a chair in the nursery, but liked the idea if feeding in bed. So I used the chair in the nursery at night/bedtime, and the sofa during the day.

I am expecting #2 and this time, I will not have a chair in the nursery (because the nursery is now DS's bedroom...) so I will either feed in bed or if I can't do that, I will go downstairs and use the sofa.

The point I am trying to make is, you don't need a special chair. If your plan to feed in bed doesn't work out for some reason, you can just use the sofa. It probably will work, I think I'm just odd.

My 'feeding chair' is an ikea poang, which I half-inched from work. I had NO idea about safe co-sleeping, so feel like a right old berk thinking back to the early weeks with DS where I'd take him from bedroom to lounge (where the chair is - no room in bedroom) to feed. Every time.

Then feel slightly less of a berk thinking about the few weeks after that where I started feeding sitting up in bed by the light of my iPhone.

Then think 'thank fook for mumsnet in the weeks mentioned above' or I wouldn't have known and got to love the sleepy fug of cosleeping (sometimes) but always always feeding lying down, in the dark, at night.

Still use the chair in the daytime when I'm not horizontal on the settee with DS draped across me, covered in hobnob crumbs

I had a chair in the nursery and for the first month or so would religiously get up however many times in the night and feed in there. He was sleeping in our room but I didn't want to wake my DH up as he'd be up for work in the morning.

I found it really stressful and would end up often quite teary as I wasn't comfortable after birth or relaxed. I was also clock watching which made it even more stressful, some nights I was in there for two hours at a time due to feeding, being sick, feeding, cuddling, settling etc.

I then saw the light one night and simply picked him up and fed him. I was so much more comfortable as I was still sleeping with lots of pillows after my CS I just propped them up all around me. I was relaxed, my DH was no more disturbed than me getting up and going out of the room with him and I found night feeds much easier.

I haven't used the chair since. I think if I did need to go out of the room as other posters have said, I would go downstairs and sit on the sofa.

Enjoy your new baby cuddles!

I wouldn't write off the chair as a possibility - I found it intensely boring not feeling able to move or breathe while feeding ds in case I woke dh, and occasionally waking ds accidentally while he was in our room (both dh and ds are hideously light sleepers), and I just couldn't get going with feeding lying down. In hindsight of course I wish I'd asked dh to sleep in the other room for a month or so until we'd got launched, but instead I got up to feed. It WAS disastrous all round in my case, but a chair does just give you other options. No real need to buy it beforehand IMO - just move a chair in with you if plan A is not quite how you expected.

I bought a chair to feed in and I have used it ONCE. It turned out that after my EMCS it was rather hard to get in and out of and then I mastered the art of feeding lying down which totally saved my sanity during cluster feeding. I found that I could mumsnet surf on my phone and I ploughed through SO many books that I'm almost nostalgic for those weeks now!

And if you're lucky you'll have a quick feeding LO like mine. During night feeds, I scoop her up, feed her lying down, she's done in 15 mins max and then I plop her back in her cot. :)

Agree that you shouldn't totally write off the idea of a chair. They are very handy in all bedrooms IMHO for piling clothes on.

I got up and went into living room because it used to take so long and it meant DP got some sleep. I watched a lot of tv in the early days. Really wish I'd had one of those babies that fed quickly and easily. The MW encouraged me to sit up quite properly (but comfortably) and hold baby across me which she didn't really like.

Some lovely person here told me about biological nurturing: www.biologicalnurturing.com/index.html and we got an extra couple of days of BF out of it. Much calmer and more relaxing.

I say don't bother with a chair, get a firm single matress if it will fit in and feed lying down. Google the safe sleeping position and obviously do not co-sleep under the influence of drugs/ alcohol.
I had a chair with dd1 due to SIDS advice not to co-sleep but breastfeeding didn't last because by the time I had got up, gone into the nursery with lights on dim, sat up for an hour 4 times per night, I was exhausted. With dd2 I breastfed for 6 months and fed lying down, dozed while feeding and generally got far more sleep . The sofa is definately unsafe (more unsafe than lying down) at night as babies are more at risk from suffocating under cushions/ falling between mum and settee if mum falls asleep sat up.

I brought one off eBay for £50, hardly used by lady who sold it.

Decent chair with foot stool too and used in the first 3 weeks so not to wake dh who was back at work but then I was confident feeding in bed lying down/co-sleeping etc

Fast forward 7.5 months and I havent used it since baby was 3 weeks old it has washing on it on a regular basis

Thought about putting it back on ebay recently, but not got round to it tbh and it's a good clothes horse I'm in staffordshire if anyone is interested in buying it off me

I sat up in bed to bf DS initally, but once I mastered feeding lying down, used that position as much as possible at night (and during the day prior to naps).

DS2 due in a few weeks and I am getting a bedside crib and will be feeding lying down from the start - hoping to get some more sleep in the first few weeks that way.

I would say that you may want to get a chair a little further down the line - for when you move baby into his/her own room. DS1 was in our room for 17 months (when we moved to a house with a room for him) and I got a chair then and I have spent many hours sat there with him, nursing, reading stories, getting him back to sleep and sitting up with him when he is unwell. Had we moved him earlier, I would have got a chair at that point, as we bf for nearly 3 years.

I didn't get a specific 'nursing' chair though - I got the Poang Chair from Ikea and some comfy cushions and it has been great and will be used else where we no longer need it in DS1's room.

I bought a nursing chair - 5 months in and it's mainly been somewhere to leave washed clothes on their way to be ironed.

Co-sleeping and breastfeeding in bed has worked out beautifully for us, writing this as dd is finishing her feed.

no - they are completely pointless. We had one used it for like 2 weeks with our first baby, and then i bought one of those nursing pillow and he rested while he fed and i could sit on the sofa or the bed. Nursing Pillows are great would def recommend getting one.

good point welovesausagedogs, the nursing pillow has been a great help feeding on a sofa or chair, making it much easier to position baby well. It made a positive difference to her latch and stopped me from crouching.

I'm a bit of a lone voice here because I also have a sidecar cot but also a nursing chair in the front room (sat in it at the moment doing a night feed!).
I found when I fed in bed I couldn't get comfy, I couldn't see baby's latch because DH likes to sleep in the dark and I kept falling asleep on top of baby which did not feel safe. As I had SPD in pg, I still cannot lie on my side comfortably, so lying down feeding is out. And our sofa is too slanted back for feeding, and who wants to sit on a dining room chair for many hours a day- not me. DD2, like her sister, takes hours to feed so I prefer to come to a comfy chair and TV to do it. We sometimes feed in bed but it is good to have the choice.
Bear in mind you can always buy a chair after baby comes if up decide you want one. No need to spend £200 if you buy second hand eg from Gumtree and you should be able to sell it on after to recoup some cash.

I got a 2nd hand glider which we use to read to DD. She lovers her nightly cuddle before she goes to bed.

See if there is someone who has one you can borrow.

I do not however, disagree with posters who say that your mum will come out with all sorts of edicts helpful advice which you can safely ignore. Also your bednest looks like a great investment and I love sleeping with DD2 so close and am sure it helped with bf. In your position, if your sofa is not too squashy and you have a feeding pillow, I probably wouldn't rush out to get a nursing chair in the next 6 weeks. Try the lying down feeding thing to see if it works for you. Shops and gumtree etc will still exist after baby comes.

I fed ds til 2.2 and dd going strong at 17 months - all with your planned set up. All will be well!

Far more important than a chair is a nursing pillow. Get a good, thick one. My 3rd child is lying on my trusty old feeding pillow dozing off on the boob as I write this.

helium I am company for your lone voice, although absolutely not saying that everyone else is wrong btw. Just personal preference.

I have a knock off of a "Dutalier" chair and I did every daytime feed in it when I was at home, every night time feed and now I use it to read DS's bedtime story.

I did find that getting up and doing a "proper" feed meant I got good 2hr chunks of unbroken sleep from the off (I'd feed at 10pm and then do, say 1am, 4am and 7am). I also got a lot of reading done But I'm one of those people that can get up, wake up fully and then just get back into bed and fall fast asleep. I hate just dozing on and off.

It sounds from your OP that my way would be your idea of hell, so do it whichever way works for you. There aren't any rules.

There's an Ikea chair that loads of MN'ers swear by if you want a cheapy