EBM top up -will it help him sleep longer?

[Vmama]

my exclusively breast fed 9 wk old ds has started to sleep a bit longer at night since I've been giving him more EBM in his night feed -would he start sleeping longer or even sleeping through if he was getting even mor -is if I fed him then gave him extra EBM as a top up?

I realise it's early to be expecting him to sleep through but it does seem that his 3 or 4 am feed is shorter and he's satisfied with less.

currently he sleeps from 7 or 8 til 11.30ish then wakes for a feed then sleeps til 3 or 4 then wakes for a 20 min feed then sleeps til 7 or 7.30

this seems pretty good to me but am just wondering what others experiences have been -ive heard of topping up with formula but would prefer not to do that so wondered if topping up with EBM would have same effect?

he's currently having 5oz EBM in his 11.30 feed

We tried it once - didn't work. Nor did the formula top-up we once tried.

Hi Vmama - I have heard that milk expressed in the morning is richer and more filling than milk at the end of day (when you are knackered...) - although I did try it with my dd and also formula top ups - neither of which made a damn difference...!

I would say if it seems to working for you then give it a try - even better, get dh to feed ebm in the night so you can sleep.

x

Those are bl**dy good sleeping patterns for a 9 week old. We were at that stage at around a year.

Neither a formula nor an EBM top-up are guaranteed to 'work' at making a baby sleep longer.The longer sleeping is probably a coincidence.

knew i shouldn't have spoken too soon -had really bad night lasr night waking every hour or so crying which he never normally does -suspect it was our fault for doing his 10 o clock feed downstairs with light on thus waking him up.

we've all been knackered today -hoping tonight will be easier again.

does anyone find that sleep patterns keep changing? anything i can do to help him sleep longer?

he only has 3 30min nps in gthe day and cries before eacj of these.

Hi Vmama

How has the rest of the week gone since Tues night?

If he is still waking up for just the 2 feeds I would thank your lucky stars! My DS is 3 and often wakes us up at least twice in the night and usually for no apparent reason. Don't stress about it too much, many Mums of a 9 wk would kill just to be woken up twice!

Let us know how you are getting on.

Sleep and feed patterns change all the time in such a young baby as they go through various developmental phases and growth spurts.

In normal terms, I wouldnt expect a baby to sleep through the night any time before 6 months so dont worry too much.

Ds started "sleeping through" in my definition of the word from about the age of your ds BUT he was absolutely wide awake in the evening and usually very grumpy so to be honest I would have been delighted with him sleeping 7-11.30 and then waking up once in the night!

At 8 weeks ds was sleeping from about midnight to 7. This has changed (got worse and better) every few weeks since. So basically, if things are bad take a deep breath and know they will change and get better, if things are good make the most of them .

I tried mucking around with loads of things re: timing & duration of feeds but he seems to set his own sleep patterns and me trying to engineer them can backfire spectacularly.

I've also found that now (23 weeks) he can usually be settled without feeding by dh if he wakes in the night. If there are night feeds then they're really short so I think that's normal.

hi everyone -it seems it was just one bad night as last night he went off easily at 8 woke at 10.30 then 1.30 and 4.30 and finally woke at 6.30 and stayed up -after his feed dh took him downstairs to play and then he slept for an hour. also meant i got extra 2 hours in bed -am convinced i have the best dh in th world as he is happy to do night feeds with ebm even while he's working wheras lots of my friends tell me their dh/dps need the sleep cos they're at work. feel v lucky both to have such a good ds and an amazing dh.

i thought he would sleep longer after his ebm feed but it doesn't seem that way so maybe he's getting more from me than the bottle.