How do I stop him ^always^ dozing off on the breast?????

[fannyannie]

DS3 is now 8 weeks old and despite me having said that I was going to stick to his one early morning feed and expressing at night (when DH gives him a bottle) I keep finding myself picking him up and latching him on .

He's not feeding for quite so long now - BUT he does keep dozing off - and then I'm stuck. When he has a bottle he finishes it and then is awake for a while, then goes to sleep (usually on his own). When he has breast he dozes off really quickly and stays right where he is - what can I do to stop him always falling asleep on the breast so that I can actually put him down awake for a while (as he does for much longer periods now).

Do you mean you can't put him down when he's fallen asleep at the breast because the movement wakes him up?

Or that you just don't want him falling asleep at the breast?

well a bit of both - he tends to fall asleep still firmly latched on.....and then I suppose you could call it 'dreamfeeds' - occasionaly little sucks in his sleep. I'm concerned that if I unlatch him he won't be getting enough milk. But then on the rare occasions he does take himself off it's really hard to put him down - it disturbs him and invariably he'll wake after only a few minutes....

He's getting really good now at falling asleep on his own, and if I started upping the number of BF's again I'd really rather he wasn't using me to get to sleep...

Ah - just gone all gooey at the memory of those little sucks in their sleep!

Ok, I'm sure someone far more expert will be along in a minute to reassure you about the having-enough-milk thing.

In the meantime, I can tell you that all three of mine were BF'd to sleep for ages (too lazy to do anything else) and it didn't seem to stop them sleeping/settling at all. So please don't worry on that account.

Do emphathise with the hard to put down thing, though. Have you tried BFing with him already lying on the Moses Basket mattress? Makes the transfer a lot easier...

thing is he'll settle on his own when he's had a bottle - I just pop him down awake and he drops off to sleep quite happily (usually...although I currently have the door closed so I can't hear him having one of his "I need to let all the tension for a couple of minutes before I sleep" sessions). And he'll often sleep anything between 30minutes to 4 1/2hrs! DH likes to walk round the room with him in his arms until he's asleep and then puts him down - same result though decent length sleeps/naps.

It's just when he falls asleep attached to the breast he either wakes up straight away when I put him down or after about 10 minutes - and we then have to repeat the process .

He actually sleeps in the carrycot for his pushchair during the day - which doesn't really have a proper 'mattress' per se so that's a bit tricky. Although we do feed him with the blanket that he lies on top of in the cot/carrycot underneath him (sort of swaddled but not really) and that seems to ease the transfer........with the bottle - but makes sod all difference with breast

My DS would snooze quite quickly once latched on - my mum came up with the best suggestion - strip down to nappy and vest - otherwise nice snuggly breastfeed makes him too warm and dozy
did the trick for us - hope it helps you