Really need advice on night feeds!! (long post sorry...)

[chunkypudding]

Hope you wise people can get me straight on this..

My baby is 3 weeks old today and eats like a little monster - weight gain has been huge, I think this is because there were problems with my placenta and he started life a lot skinnier than he should have been.

He's taken to bf well, although I think my milk is a bit 'spurty' at the moment, there is quite a bit of shocked thrashing around and coughing going on at some feeds...

My real query though is how to structure night feeds. I'm feeding on demand and certainly don't plan to change this (not yet anyway!!) but I have been bringing him downstairs to feed , and changing his nappy mid-feed as I felt this is what I'm meant to do if he's been asleep for 3 hours else he's just lying in poo and wee for ages BUT I keep reading about people managing swift, quiet night feeds...

SOOO does this mean I can skip the nappy change in the middle of the night? By the time we've gone downstairs, fed, changed. fed some more, winded etc etc he is generally really bloody awake. So a 3 or 4am feed can take up to a couple of hours.

I could rea;;y use some advice on this as I haven't talked to anyone about night feeds and really have no idea of the best way to go about it.

I have lots of other worries regarding insane amounts of cluster feeding and general loss of sanity but think I'll try and tackle this one first, so if anyone can help...

thanks loads xx

Hi, I onoy ever changed my newborns nappies at night if they had pooed in them, or if they were exceptionally full of wee ! I found the first few weeks you are changing them as well as feeding them at night, so it does take a lot longer, but gradually they do stop pooing at night (not sure why ! but they do.) So you can just quietly feed in bed, then pop him back to sleep when done. hope that helps

thanks chankins - there always seems to be poo and also I can't tell until I get in there so maybe I'm stuck with it...

should I keep him up in the bedroom for feed and change in middle of night? could that help stop him getting so very awake?

have been trying to spare dp that one as he's working lots, he does the first thing in morning change though...

there must be something i can do!!!

Sorry, I don't know any way round the night change business, but they go down to one or two poos a day pretty quick. DS stopped night pooing (much) around 6 weeks I think.

Agree with Chankins about not bothering to change them at night for wee - I never bothered unless it was leaking out the legs or he had nappy rash!

It is worth trying to change in teh bedroom (if you can) and keeping the lights low, at least it seemed to help DS stay sleepy. It's also warmer!

Keeping the night feed low key helps - feed him either in your room or the his. I feed ds in our room with the door a little ajar just with the hall light so he doesn't get particularly wakeful. Minimal eye contact too so he doesn't think it's play time. Dh learned to sleep through remarkably quickly apart from one memorable night when he woke up and asked me to make ds3 suck more quietly . Not changing his nappy will help too but you may be stuck with doing that for another week or two given his age. Would always change for poo though. HTH

I meant to add, invest in a 20 watt bulb for your bedside light if you haven't already!

I always changed them upstairs on the bed - dh sleeps through anything though, so it never bothered him ! Keeping the lights low when changing then switching off once you are feeding again helps them get used to the whole night and day thing. Good luck

Hello chunky
my night time feeds always took a while as well when DS was little - how boring is 3am?!
Anyway, i have always fed in bed, even in the middle of the night. I'm lucky cos DH can wake up and get back to sleep really quickly. And I bought a bedside light that you can fade, so I could have it on low and try not to wake us all fully.
I also changed DS upstairs as well (have changing stuff upstairs and downstairs) - and yes, I tended to change in the middle of the night, as I thought it would be nasty to be lying in wee/poo for ages.
I would definitely say to feed and change in the bedroom - you don't want to be puddling around the house in the middle of the night - then you both end up wide awake (well, I would).
HTH - good luck!

I would try and keep him in the bedroom if you can or maybe make sure that you are in a fairly quiet, dark room. I found that the nappy changes were necessary to begin with but these do tail off and it should hopefully not be too much longer. I found that if I changed DD's nappy and winded her for a bit in the middle of the feed that it was easier to get her back to sleep and to stop her from falling asleep on the breast before she had taken enough milk to keep her going for longer than about 45 minutes (she was premmie though so hopefully you won't find it quite that bad). When DD was big enough to go into baby dry nappies it was much easier to leave her in the same nappy all night if she hadn't done a poo.

IME men very quickly learn to sleep through night feeds

I'm the same, feed DD in bed if she wakes up and only change her if she poos or has a really wet nappy. If so, then I keep the lights low and always have the hall light on with the door open throughout the night, so I can see what I'm doing without disturbing her too much. I find she usually goes back to sleep quite quickly.

you people are wonderful. I love mn, really don't know what I'd do without it.

It even helps just being reminded that there are other people sitting up feeding in the middle of the night - it can feel so lonely sometimes - lol at 'how boring is 3am??' strawberrylace, it really bloody is.

Dp is happy with the idea of us trying to keep the whole thing upstairs so hope this will help.

Am encouraged that night poos may stop soon, he is a poo machine at the mo

ds not dp is poo machine obviously [grin

echoing the advice you've already had and adding that my DD, who produced 12 poos a day in the early days, suddenlty started pooing three times a day every other day from 6 weeks, so it does get better.

I feed her in my bed, in the dark now I've got the hang of it all, and pop her straight back to bed. she even stopped needing to be winded at around 12 weeks.

I actually enjoy the night feeds though, when the world is quiet and it's just you and baby sharing a lovely moment . My DH valiantly tres to stay awake incase she needs a change or whatever (she never does) and all he does is distract her!

lol hannahsaunt at your DH......I'm sure that feed didn't stay quiet and low key for long!