Advice needed breastfeeding and sleeping through at 3 mths.

[tori32]

Does any one have a breastfed child who slept 7pm-7am from 3 mths? If you did then can you tell me how to achieve it? Thanks?

ah but we can dream .... and go to bed earlier!

I went to bed at 8pm every night for the first 3 months

Dh didn;t like it much, but it was bliss for me!

and thats where I must go now ... good night and good luck!

sorry frayedknot have you read the whole thread? Its not a Holy Grail beacause my dd did it but ff. I just needed to see if it was possible bf. Silverfrog and supermonkey have been most helpful in my 'quest for the Holy Grail' !

going to join you in the dreaming stakes! In the sleepy first trimester so thank you all and night night!

No, but it may be a Holy Grail for your next little one, be he/she formula or breastfed. My sister was a fantastic sleeper and poor eater - me the exact opposite. My mum - a cracking nursery nurse well used to getting whole rooms of babies off to sleep. Good luck - I hope you have a sleepy little soul in March - me, I can sympathise with my daughter, as I find it hard to get to sleep sometimes!

Tori, it might be worth me pointing out that if DS does wake in the night it's a really quick feed - I'm usually back in bed within 10/15 minutes and can usually do the whole thing half asleep (I have indeed been known to fall asleep and have woken to find a sleeping child attached to my chest!)

The other thing to mention is that, when I wake to feed him at 11pm ish, I do change his nappy but don't turn the light on or talk to him. There was a bit of trial and error to find the best way to wake him just enough for him to take the feed but not so much that he wouldn't go back to sleep again easily.

Tori - my current baby was between 19 and 23 weeks when he went through his "let's wake Mummy up for a feed every 90 minutes" phase!

Prior to that he fed every 3 hours on the dot since he was 2 days old (he was 9lb 3oz at birth so big anyway).

He has been so desperate for food for the past few weeks and I have been trying to hold off as long as possible, but now he has 3 pureed meals a day, he only wakes me twice again (which feels like bliss compared to being woken every hour or two).

He went very quickly from 1 meal to 3 a day as he is such a starver.

The other two were BF and slept for 6 hours at 10 weeks, then by about 3 months I am sure they were sleeping about 7 hours.

I think hunger is what wakes them. A lot of Bfing Mum's I know give their babies a bottle of formula last thing at night so they can get some kip, but I've never been able to do that as I am a bit of a purist and like the idea of them getting as much breast milk as poss. I never find BFing easy, so its a bit of a challenge for me (I'm deteremined to suceed at it, come what may)

Its a good point about just going to bed earlier though. If you can get to bed at 8 or 9pm, at least you can get a couple hours more sleep - in the short term until your baby hits that magic 6 month mark and gets some solids

If lack of sleep due to demand BF is what you are worried about BEST advice it to get someone to help DD.

My DD is 11 weeks and I have had to resort to mix feeding for many reasons but one of them was to get some rest and cope with DS. I really wish I had sorted out some support like getting DH to save his hols and tag them to paternity leave or save money to get DS to a nursery for the early weeks.

Also, learn to BF lying down. I managed it a few times and got to powernap that way.

Good luck - I really wish I had asked for tips BEFORE DD was born.

DS2 is exclusively bf, he can go from 9p.m. to 4 a.m. without feeding at 2 months old. He might even go through to 6 or 7 a.m. if I fed him at 11 p.m. but I don't like the idea of waking him up. I can cope with one night time feed but like you, I need my sleep and found the first few weeks very hard with feeds every 2 hours.

DS2 feeds on demand every 2 hours during the day and cluster feeds in the evening 7, 8, 9 p.m. but I don't mind if it means he fills his little tank for the night.

Also totally agree about having him sleep in his own bed. And whilst I'm not keen on letting him cry, pretending to be deaf for a few minutes works wonders.

No doubt within a month or so, DS2 will be sleeping at least until 6 a.m. Believe me, bf babies can and do sleep! Mothers need sleep too, it's not all about the baby. Doesn't mean we don't love them if we don't immediately leap out of bed to cuddle them at 3 in the morning.

DS was a pretty good sleeper and was 100% BF. I can't remember when he slept through (he doesn't do 12 hours - max is 11 1/2 and he is 2), but he did start doing 8 hour stretches from about 7 weeks.

I did do cluster feeding in the afternoon but
what I did find best for a good night's sleep was not actually feeding related:
-getting his day time naps/routine sorted out really helped him sleep at night
-lots of fresh air - the days that he was outside a lot in pram or sling, he slept longer and better at night.

potoroo and fatslag (feel rude calling you that!) thank you both . You both sound very sensible and on my wavelength. I am good at routine now since dd1 ( dons hard hat again, prepare for attack! As I do like the GF thing from a routine perspective. Not by the letter but as a guide to the amount of sleep etc required.

My 3 all breast fed until 12mo or more.

DS1 slept thru at 7mo.

DD was 9wks

DS2 was 3mo. By slept thru I mean 7pm to 6am.

Don't know my secret (esp with DD!) but did nothing special, demand fed when they woke etc.

You should see the size of my rear end!

LOL!!

Genetic. Both mine have broadly done 8-7 by three months (though I now tend to wake dd up to give her a feed in the night because she's a slow gainer).

Both were clockwork babies who never wanted to be fed more than three hourly and put themselves into the routine that I subsequently discovered was Gina's.

Sheer damn luck.

Terrible colic though!

Haven't read thread.
DS slept 8pm - 8am with a dreamfeed at 11pm from about 3 months.
Dreamfeed was expressed milk from a bottle, usually given by DP. Found DS would take milk from a bottle without really waking up, but was too sleepy to breastfeed.
Used rough Baby Whisperer routine for the rest of the day, don't know if that helped to encourage decent nightime sleep.

I think what has been forgotten on this thread is that night feeding is an important part of the supply/demand mechanics of BF.

A 3 month old FF baby might well sleep through the night if they are full enough.

A BF baby might well sleep through teh night also.

But because BF babies need to feed in order for you to continue to produce milk, feeding at night ensures your supply keeps up with demand (higher prolactin levels etc).

I kind of assume that this is the reason why some BF babies do sleep through and some not, because each individual baby / mother / breast / supply combo is different.

I therefore also think this somehwat dictates needing to go with your baby rather than prematurely curtail night feeding.

I do know people in RL who exclusively BF and did have sucess with the GF type methods and of course there are plenty on MN too.

However from my own personal experience (a) None of anything mentioned on this thread worked with DS (and believe me, I tried) (b) if I had pursued any strict routine for very long with DS I think my milk supply would have evaporated

and understanding more about BF now than I did then, in hindsight I would not do anything to interfere with allowing the baby to regulate demand / supply for the first 3-4 months at least.

Hence my Holy Grail comments.

Frayedknot
Thank you for your comments. I can appreciate what you are saying about the supply aspect. However, I don't feel my goal is unrealistic given my baby will 90% be 10lb due to genetics (big DH and me not being small). DD1 was 9lb12oz, so I think it would be reasonable to assume he or she can take more in one feed than a smaller baby. So hopefully I will be able to demand feed as much as poss during the day and it will hopefully mean less night feeds. Hopefully, at 3-4 mths my supply will be adequate to give enough during the day to see baby until morning.
Would it help for me to feed from one side and express from the other in the early days to increase my supply? My thinking being that if baby doesn't take everything that is in both breasts then supply will not increase until he/she does?
Obviously as I have said in previous posts, I have been given poor advice on feeding from various sources so I would just like to know if this will help. Hopefully then I will not be continually feeding.

Tori if there was a magic way to get bf babies to sleep through the night, don't you think everyone would be doing it?

IMO you need to be concentrating on getting yourself as much sleep as possible. Co-sleeping is one way. You said it didn't work for you having your previous baby in the room, but it is worth trying again. Also co-sleeping means sharing a bed rather than a room. Things work in rather a special way for a breastfeeding mother and child when they share a bed, and it is IMO (and the opinion of many) the best way to get sleep while bfing and the best way to establish bfing.

I agree that it would make bf easier but seriously, you are speaking to someone who can't even get a good nights sleep just with her husband in the bed, let alone having an infant aswell!

I do think it's luck I'm afraid. My 24 week DS has slept 7-5 then quick feed and back to sleep till 9am since he was about 12 weeks. Some nights he's gone even longer. And then he has the odd week or two when he's waking up every couple of hours and just when I think I can't take anymore, he goes back to sleeping through.

He's exclusively breastfed (well until today when I gave him 1/2 a rice cake ). I dropped the 10pm dreamfeed really early on (about 6-8 weeks) because I found it was just making him wake up a bit earlier for his next feed.

I do think that co-sleeping is great in the early days as it ensures you get maximum sleep. As does keeping them in your room while they're still waking up in the night. Personally I'd find trekking down the hall if they do wake a real fag but we all need to find what works for us as individuals and for our babies - and they're individuals too!

I don;t think that birth weight probably has much to do with it, Tori32. DS was over 8lbs, and clearly kept himself up on the 75th centile by feeding little and often

Although you can hope for the best and of course it's worth trying different thigs to see if it helps, I think you might be disappointed if in fact your DC doesn;t start sleeping through early on.

I think it would be worth sorting out the various scenarios about what to do if & when s/he doesn;t.

For example, will you express and get DC taking bottle so that you can go to bed early &DH do a feed? Will you arrange childcare for your Dc1 so that you can get some sleep in the day if necessary? What help will you get for the first few weeks / months?

If things get too much will you co-sleep? Or give a bottle of formula? Or soldier on?

I'm not sure about expressing to increase supply.

BTW, what was the reason for stopping BF with your DD?

Lots of reasons really ( not impossible to overcome but found it soooo hard)

1. Section as an emergency under GA didn't bond well, husband had first sts contact. When dd was handed to me i just thought 'how do i know this is my baby'
2. Was in labour 39 hours up to that point so already exhausted/ shocked. Started feeding as soon as came round.
3. No assistance to latch baby on or advice and to exhausted to think about asking, so just tried my best.
4. baby allowed to sleep 5 hours during day and not feeding often in first few days, sleepy due to GA (stays in system for 48 hrs in adults)
5. Got home, milk did not come in properly for a week by which point dd was very hungry and sometimes was on me for 3/4 hours at a time or would scream.
6. DD used to vomit badly after 70% of feeds which led me to feel that the feed was wasted and that I did not have more to feed her straight away, even though she appeared to be screaming with hunger ( had winded her).
7. By week 5 I was exhausted, constantly crying, resented the baby for my lack of sleep and due to the section DH helped with everything for 3 weeks. However, because all I seemed to do was sleep and feed her I felt like a milking machine.
8. Week 5 I introduced ff at 1030 but still did this as DH back at work. DD slept better, only waking once in the night.
9. I concluded that she was hungry most of the time, I was getting very depressed doing bf and my relationship with dd and dh was suffering.
10. Topped up from 5 weeks with ff after every bf and always had 5oz f after a breast feed on both breasts for 30 mins each, at 7 weeks.