Does caffeine make a huge difference to bf baby?

[GimbleInTheWabe]

Please tell me no.

DS is 10mo and has never learnt to appreciate the deliciousness of a full night's sleep (thank god he's adorable). He naps okay now he's on 2 naps a day but still wakes up 2/3 times a night to feed.

Now, mama needs her caffeine so she doesn't go crazy. DP is a fancy coffee snob person so he makes coffee from beans he grinds and then does some sort of magic spell over (I have no idea what goes on in there). My point is, I expect it's quite strong. So I have magic coffee in the morning and then probably one cup of 'builders' tea at some other point. Could this amount of caffeine have an effect on DSs sleep?

Has anyone ever cut out caffeine and it had an impact on their LO?

I think it's on NHS website about what your allowed. Tbh I've had a full caffine Costa and then de-caf rest of the day before and it's never impacted baby's sleep ( he didn't sleep much anyway). Could you change the tea to decaf? ?

All of mine weren't fans of a full night of sleep whether I gave up caffeine or not.

2yo DS stopped BF a couple of months ago and is still a shite sleeper so I don't think caffeine had much to do with it.

Despite what people's expectations are of babies they are not meant to sleep all the way through the night - apparently it's a survival thing.

The caffine recommend limit is due to it causing stunted growth etc not due to lack of sleep in babies.nhs has info on it from memory

My Ebf DD sleeps beautifully and I probably have the same amount of caffeine as you. (Unfortunately her older brother doesn't!)

NHS site says, from memory it is up to about 200mg of caffeine and an instant coffee has about 80. I have 1 med Costa style coffee most days.

As a highly scientific experiment..... I am currently bf twins. DT1 sleeps 7-11.30pm, then through to 7am.

DT2 wakes up at 2.30 most mornings.

Make of that what you will!

Oh and DT1 is under the care of an NHS dietitian and following his growth curve perfectly so no stunting going on here!

Woohoo! That's what I wanted to hear. Coffee is sanity in a cup for me so I would have been very sad to let it go.

Thanks for the NHS pointer, I'll check that out as I had no idea about it potentially stunting growth. Hopefully I'm not over the limit, as it were, but good to know all the same.

@JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff you get my ultimate Paul Hollywood style legendary handshake of marvel for bf twins. How old are they? How do you do it? Can you feed them both at the same time one on each boob? Are they bloody adorable? I have so many questions.

Has made no difference to mine at all.

One of mine was really affected, the other two weren't. Could you live with taking a few days off to test? Keep paracetamol handy for the inevitable headaches...

When I was breastfeeding my first I was very careful about caffeine/spicy food etc and she slept terribly - didn’t sleep through reliably until went to school!! When I was breastfeeding my second the quidelines went out of the window and I didn’t watch what I ate or drank (apart from alcohol) and she was a brilliant sleeper so no I don’t think caffeine makes a difference. You either get a demanding non sleeper or you get an easy going sleeper - not much you can do really!

Gimble
I am actually cheating as they have one bottle a day so technically combination fed but yeah, bf all other feeds. They were initially fed on bottles of ebm then transitioned to straight bf with a top up bottle of ebm then added in a bedtime bottle of Aptamil from 4 mos to try and make them sleep (worked for one but not the other, sigh....). Tandem feeding is the golden goal of twin mummyhood but I failed as the little sods darlings don't like it and delatch and cry if I try to add one on when the other is feeding. So I do one then the other.

They are 6 mos old and actually DT2 just weaned yesterday!! Only a bit of butternut squash puree but still......