On reflection. . . . .

[MadameJ]

My start to Bf was a difficult one with DD, she was premature and needed to have a NGT for about 2 weeks, she then moved onto breastfeeding directly. I was told to feed DD "at every squek" in order for her to establish BF and to gain weight. This is what I did and BF went really well for us, she was EBF until 6 months and then I carried on BF until she self weaned at 19 months. I am now pregnant again and I am hoping to BF again.

DH and I were talking about the early days and how hard they were in relation to lack of sleep etc and although we appreciate all babies are different but this time could be very similar.

One of the things that has occured to me is I never really tried to get DD to sleep, as I think I was so determined to BF I would allow her to feed/comfort suck constantly if thats what I thought she wanted but I do sometimes wonder whether I should have tried harder to encourage sleep, obviously she would fall asleep whilst feeding and then we would usually have a short nap and we would start all over again!!

What are your views on this? It is hard for me to iamgine doing things differently second time around as in all honesty it worked really well for DD but I am open to suggestions and views on the situation.

Sounds like you did bloody well to get BF established with your DD :)

I think you are going to experience sleepless nights no matter what you do, however your feed your baby or what their personality is like! Babies are made to breastfeed on demand and fall asleep at the breast- you will be fighting against biology to do anything else, with no guarantee that it will work.

There are loads of baby 'experts' that claim to have the answers to a good night's sleep. The truth is that babies just don't sleep in the same way as adults. ISIS online is a good source of information about sleep.

Are there other things you could do to make the sleepless nights easier? I know it's tough with an older child, is your DD at nursery or anything?

I wonder this too sometimes. DS is 17mo and we had a dream start to bfing. Except for the fact it was the only way he would sleep when he was tiny. So we went with it, thinking that he'd eventually grow out of it. And here we are 17 months later, still co-sleeping, still feeding to sleep. Now we are starting to think about the dreaded sleep training (nothing too hard) as I can't see how things will change unless we change them.

Part of me wonders if its all my fault for not working harder at getting him to sleep in other ways when he was little. But to be honest, I was so knackered for such a long time that I didn't care how he got there, just as long as he slept!

Thanks EauRouge, In all honesty I didn't actually mind the sleepless nights as such as we co-slept so I was at least rested. I suppose my main reason for asking this was whenever people mention newborn sleep my DD never seemed to follow what they were saying. I was and still am happy to follow babies lead but I would hate to think I had prevented sleep if that is even possible??
DD wont be at nursery until new DC is about 6 months but she is a fab little lady and will hopefully probably be very usefull and love spending time with her new brother/sister.

FredKiller, I also fed DD to sleep until it stopped working (I think at about 13 months) and then looked for other options, for us it was gradual retreat and this worked really well and now she self settles within minutes and usually sleeps all night so when the time comes I am sure you and your LO will be fine