"preventing" cluster feeding - wrong?!

[blushingmare]

Another one from me!

I have been experimenting with a stretchy wrap, which is great and dd (4 weeks) loves it and is all snuggly in it and generally just goes to sleep. She normally cluster feeds like crazy from 4 til 11pm. However, today I popped her in the wrap after she had a feed at 5 and she has been asleep since! No feeding frenzy - yet!

Is this ok to do this or do babies this age need to cluster feed to stock up for the night and to establish/maintain my milk supply?

I should think she'll make up for it at another time. Maybe someone with more bf expertise will be along to advise... If she feeds all night instead you'll probably decide 4-11 was preferable. But the cluster feeding does calm down a lot, then you look back nostalgically on all those box sets you were able to watch while bfing for hours on end...

I'd say fine for every so often but I'd wanting to be feeding her at least every 3 hours, probably every 2 hours at that age both for supply and in hope of getting a good stretch of sleep at night.

At least now you know the wrap will work if you need a bit of a break from the cluster feeding.

Hi Icecream - I would still be planning to feed every 2-3 hours, just wondered if her not doing the frenzied nonstop feeding every ten minutes is a bad thing? ie. last might what I ended up doing was feeding at 5, she slept in sling while I had dinner etc, fed at 8 and then on and off til 9:30 (but nowhere near as frenzied as normal) then fed at 10:45 and she's just gone until 2:45 as normal so it doesn't appear to have affected her night feeding.

I guess my question is is it ok for her not to be feeding in that frenzied nonstop way in the evenings? Am I ok to "impose" on her a feed, sleep for two hours, feed pattern, rather than the non stop feed, feed, feed pattern that she would be doing if she weren't in the sling? My inclination is that she quite happily went down to sleep in her snuggly sling so perhaps the feeding frenzy is more of a comfort thing than a need for nutrition and therefore the sling meets this need. However if it's going to mess with my supply to not be doing the feeding frenzy then that is more of an issue.

Sorry to ramble on!

I don't think you can make any predictions about future behaviour on the basis of one night, sorry! With DS I thought I had 'cracked' things a few times but the effects (of eg, using a hammock) tended to be temporary.

If she carries on sleeping snuggly in the sling in the evenings, though, I wouldn't fret. You're not forcing anything - who knows, maybe she just wanted to feed because she was uncomfortable? She'll take what she needs!

I'm sure she can't "need" to feed every ten minutes though she may have wanted to. Every 10 minutes usually ends up with sore nipples if I remember my experience with DD rightly! She certainly sounds happy in the sling and as long as you are feeding every 2-3 hours she'd be getting the nutrition she needs. I think you are doing a great job!

Besides, 2nd and 3rd babies don't get fed every 10 mins cos you're too busy getting the others to bed, and they survive ok!

See how the next few nights go.