How loud should the 'demand' be before I feed?

[SmudgeMum]

Hi all, very new mum here with a 1 week old son. BF is going really well but I was just wondering whether I'm supposed to wait until he cries before I feed or if it's ok when I hear him start to root etc. It's worst at night for me because I wake up when I hear him starting to stir and it can then be half an hour before he's starting to make sounds (not crying just sort of snorting!) I'm wondering if I am missing out on half an hour sleep that I could have! [tired emoticon] Thanks for your help

hi smudge

congrats on your new son.

glad to hear the bf is going well - well done you.

my dd (now 15 months) was a velcro baby and we ended up co-sleeping so she never had to wait long for a feed LOL.

so i don't really have any personal experience of your situation.

i suspect he's going to wake you whatever happens - my dd can still wake me with a slight noise now!

there's such a thing as a dream feed which means you feed them whilst their asleep - maybe you could try this and pre-empt his full on waking for a feed? you latch him on whilst still asleep and pop him back hopefully with as little awakeness as poss.

altho i guess you might find he sucks and drops back off and you end up just comfort sucking all night!

sorry, I'm not being very helpful!

someone more experienced will be along shortly I'm sure!

good luck

if you are awake and he is then feed him. There are no hard and fast rules. Do what you are comfortable with. Why make him cry?

Thanks for the advice. I kind of thought that it would be ok just to feed him but I don't want to get where every time he snuffles, he thinks he'll be fed. (I know early days and maybe too early for bad habits but I'm thinking more bad habits from me than from him) Perhaps the tiredness will kick in more and he'll have to do more to wake me up?

Congrats on your new baby - those first few weeks are a bit of a whirlwind aren't they? . Echoing what others have said, just go with what you feel comfortable with (especially if it lets you go back to sleep). I didn't co-sleep full time, but in the first few weeks I would often fall asleep feeding lying down and wake up cutched up with my baby an hour or so later. If he seemed to be sound asleep I would pop him back in his moses basket, but then I do like to stretch out a bit in bed!

Also, you will find (hopefully) that your baby becomes a bit of a quieter sleeper as time goes on, this certainly was the case for us. Either that or my extreme tiredness meant I developed selective deafness .

Thanks Mae - i think DH has already developed that particular condition (selective deafness)

sheesh - my DH would say irritating things like 'oh, he didn't wake up last night then...', I would of course then boot him out of bed to deal with the inevitable early morning pooey nappy

Congrats on the new baby! The first 6 wks are pretty fluid (in more ways than one ) do what feels good to you. As your body adjust to him and he adjusts to the world, things will change. But sounds as if you are doing great so far.

mae are you welsh? our co-sleeping started with lying down feeding and waking an hour or 2 later all cutched up too!

as dd got older she became less settled and i stopped even trying to get her into the bedside cot.

as for men and selective hearing, some studies even offer scientific evidence to prove that men aren't biologically built to hear babies crying.

bet the researcher/scientist was a bloke I say!

Any old whimper and I fed him here

Congratulations Smudge!
Don't forget that babies wake up in the night even when they are not hungry and don't need feeding. If you start feeding him when he isn't hungry it may become habit for him to wake up more often than necessary in the night for a feed and he may lose the abilility to put himself back to sleep if you pick him up and disturb him. I personally wouldn't feed him unless you know he really is hungry, that way you can hope he will be sleeping longer at night more quickly. You waking up with every noise and snuffle he makes will get better.

I have ds1 and am pregnant with twins so have been reading up a bit, 'Baby Secrets' by Jo Tantum says 'Don't rush to your baby at every sound but go to him only when he needs you. Rushing to him too soon can actively prevent him from sleeping. Babies make many noises when they are falling asleep, while they drift in and out of sleep and between phases of light and deep sleep. Newborns have more light sleep than adults and make all manner of noises during it.....'

Smudge - crying is a late sign of hunger. A young baby will give a series of feeding cues which you can respond to by offering the breast. No need to worry about bad habits - babies who are responded to in this way are actually less likely to be miserable and whingy later on, because their confidence in the world, and in you, and in the fact they are nurtured and loved, has grown.

Leolady - new babies waking in the night should always be assumed to need feeding. Smidge's baby is one week old and last week he was in utero, feeding ad lib, and surrounded by his mum You are wrong that leaving a new baby to 'prove' he is hungry (how?) will lead to longer sleeping at night - the research says otherwise.

Jo Tatum may have access to other research, but I doubt it - I don't care for her tone. 'Rushing' to your baby 'too soon' - what's that mean? It's not 'rushing', it's 'responding' and if the baby is held close then there's no 'rushing' needed!! It is true that babies can be noisy and snuffly when asleep, though

and do remember - one week old babies CANNOT learn bad habits! it's a long time yet before you need to think about that.

(I spent loads of time worrying unnecessarily about 'bad habits' last time, mostly due to pressure from other people/books etc. this time I know that it's all rubbish)

ooooo I bet he smells lovely. waft him over here to try and kick off my labour will you?

my dd was over 12 months before she woke in the night and wasn't hungry!

i do think she comfort sucked a lot but she was a frequent feeder anyway. once she went onto solids she finally began to space her bf a bit longer apart. that's probably when i really noticed the comfort sucking or maybe it's even when it began.......

but, she self weaned (pretty much) about a month ago and prior to that had already progressed to sleeping thru in her own cot.

agree with tiktok about creating confidence in babies by learning to read their cues and satisfying their needs before they become distressed. certainly think this has been the case for my dd.

yes the first year has been exhausting but i am feel i am reaping the benefits now.

some babies sleep 12 hours from birth, some don't. if you've got one that doesn't i'd recommend any course of action that gives mum and bub the most sleep possible!

Thanks Tiktok ! I'm working out how I am going to cope with 2 babies so plan to use her book as a guide, I appreciate your comments on the waking at night and feeding and looking for other signs of hunger not just crying.

is Jo Tatum the new you know who then?

Leolady, I can really understand the feelings you have...it can be scary thinking of how you will manage with 2.

I do feel that trying to resist a baby's (or even 2 babies!) normal, physiological need for frequent, unpredictable feeding can be harder work than just going with the flow...truly.

The pressure people feel, from different sources, not to respond (fears of 'spoiling', bad habits and the rest) is enormous, and it can be exhausting doing the things like leaving to cry, putting down and then picking up (baby must feel like a yoyo, and they can get genuinely distressed).

What are we teaching our babies when we say 'sorry, baby, you have to scream and scream and scream before anyone takes your needs seriously'....we would accept this is distressing for an older child, or an adult. Why would it not be distressing for a baby who has no other way to express himself, no words or behaviour....?

You can teach babies by leaving them to cry - some babies do learn in a few nights. But what have you taught them?

It's Jo Tantum, BTW.

Her approach is less rigid than some-others-we-could-mention-but-won't.

It is notable that the 'experts' who are crazy for routines are almost always maternity nurses and nannies. They are producing a method that has been shown to work for them, when they care for a newborn, usually without doing anything else (caring for other kids, shopping, housework, whatever). It is in their interests to claim parents have to be taught to follow a certain 'magic' method rather than support a mother's growing confidence in responding to her own individual baby's individual needs. It is not in their interests to support responsive breastfeeding, for instance (what would be left for the nanny to do??? She's not gonna start washing the kitchen floor for you....oh no!).

I think their methods probably do 'work' for a bottle fed baby whose routine care is in the hands of a nanny.

agree tiktok

cannot keep recommending 'the social baby' as an excellent book for new parents and parents to be.

google it to find out more as well googling 'the children's project' sorry too busy to do links right now.

I found this quote the other day, which I think sums up a lot of the 'routine crazy' industry quite nicely:

"If you are not part of the solution then there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem" (I'd love to attribute this, but I really don't know who the quote belongs to)

Tee hee!

I want to say thanks for all the support and advice yesterday. I don't know whether people were wishing us well last night but it was great. DS fed at 10, 1, 5, 7 and I fed him once he was smacking his lips and starting to root but way before he cried. He settled straight back in his moses basket after each feed and slept the whole night. I'm not naive enough to think it will last but hey, each night at a time.
The only problem with it was that my boobs were so full by the time he fed that I had to express some or his little mouth wouldn't have fitted. Does this mean that he missed out on the thirst quenching bit of the feed? Sorry - more questions.

You did fine, Smidge....please don't worry about the 'thirst quenching bit of the feed'. Breastmilk is mostly water anyway, all the way through...he will cope just fine with what you did

Glad you had a good night Smudge, one night at a time is exactly right . I found that if I just went with the flow and fed DS whenever, my boobs soon settled down. Although the first time he finally slept through I nearly shot him across the room because I was so full .