how to do night feeds? advice please!

[ratfly]

I just wondered how other people do their night feeds. DS is 3 weeks old and wakes 2-3 times each night (bf). He currently sleeps in a carry cot which we put downstairs in the pram in the daytime and upstairs in the cot at night.

For a night feed, I take the carrycot downstairs, so as not to disturb DH too much (as he is back at work). This also works as we are using colief to help settle DS's tummy. Often, as DS is quite tricky to get back to sleep, I will end up sleeping on the sofa until he wakes for his next feed (with him in the carrycot near me).

I am a bit concerned that as he gets older this routine will wake him up too much, and he will be hard to settle into his cot. Am I worrying too much, will the night feeds decrease anyway so it isn' t too much of a problem, or should I get into good habits now and feed him upstairs and put him back in his carrycot in his cot?

Any advice?

With dd (now 3) we took her downstairs to feed as she was bottlefed and they were made up in advance in the fridge - so had to go down to heat them anyway.

This time with ds (4 months) we have done it differently. Although ds is bottle fed, we dont make up in advance - we just put water in the bottle and put powder in a dispenser and add the powder to the bottle when required. We take everything up to the bedroom and this means when ds is having a feed we can get back into bed and stay warm as well!!

Dh shares the feeding (although more so at weekends) and doesnt get too disturbed when ds wakes/is being fed.

I would personally stay upstairs and feed your lo in comfort - it also foters good sleeping habits if you feed and put back to bed rather than faffing about going up and down the stairs.

Ratfly, I was told off by so many people when ds was in his first few weeks for doing things that would lead to bad habits and be "a rod for your own back" (cosleeping etc).

Ok, we're only 3 months in and inevitably everything will change again, but ds now sleeps in his own cot and has done since about 8 weeks. I still take him in with us if he's difficult to settle and to get me an extra bit of sleep in the morning.

Do whatever makes things easiest for you right now - I don't think it's really possib;e to instil either good or bad habits at this stage!

I second Seona's advice to feed in bed if you can - I would if I could get the hang of it!

I bf ds in bed and it never woke dh. They don't have the same super-sonic mummy hearing that we do... Much easier and cosier for me and ds. In fact, I always had to change his nappy halfway through to try to wake him up... Use a nightlight so you can see what you're doing.

I always fed in bed too. We had the cot next to the bed, and I had a nightlight so I could see what I was doing but not disturb DH. Then if we both dozed off during the feed, as often happened, we were both cosy and warm. Then DD could go straight back in the cot with no fuss.

If you're anything like me, after you've been doing these night feeds for a few more weeks you will be so tired you won't have the energy to drag yourself downstairs in the middle of the night!

DD was put upstairs to bed at about 7pm after her feed, i would then feed her at 11pm when i went to bed.

I always fed dd when she woke at 2am in bed dh never woke (still doesn't) i even put the telly on as i could never get back to sleep.

When we changed to the bottle DH would do the night feed on a friday and saturday night as he was still up playing computer games.

DD was still having a bottle in the night at 20mth i got it down to about 5 mins.

Another vote for in bed, lying down if you can. Fed both DC like this. Was DH bit to settle child back into bed. We did end up co-sleep a bit as well. Which DH like better, as he didn't have to settle then and could sleep through it . It wasn't till DS moved into his own room at 6 mths that I fed elsewhere at night. Then I fed in his room with lights off

You will be amazed at what DP/DH's can sleep through. Really. I would agree that if you are more comfortable downstairs then do that, but if you'd prefer to be snug in your own bed, you should do it.

I BF in bed, it is easy to settle my LO as cot right there, and I can go straight back to sleep, my DP does not wake often at all.

Would also agree not to worry at all about any kind of routine/making rods etc this early. My LO went to bed at 11pm until about 4 weeks, did no bother trying to set any routine. She told us herself (not literally, but by intense crying at lights/noise) that she was ready for bed at 7:30pm, when she was about 4-5 weeks old. Let her set her own routine, although of course this does not work for every baby (and not even mine now!).

Good luck

Maybe I will give feeding in bed a go this weekend. I must say it is tricky to do - DS is very noisy, and I find it hard to get him to latcfh on when lying down. I have to go to get the colief from downstairs anyway, and to heat up the EBM for it to go into too, so I will have to see if it is feasible.

Unfortunately DH is a light sleeper... but hopefully the frequent night feeds won't go on for too long..

Really I am worried about getting DS into the habit of going downstairs to feed, and not going to sleep in his cot, but being put there after he has nodded off.

If you have to heat up the milk, Lindam do a Day/Night system which I found fantastic - it has a coolbox to keep the milk cold over night and also a bottle warmer so you take it upstairs when you go to bed, and just get the bottle of EBM out of the coolbox and heat it up without needing to go downstairs.

Mothercare and Argos sell it

Do you have to give him Colief at night? Can't you just do it during the day? Or have you tried Infacol? You don't need to mix that with milk, I don't think.