BF advice needed- how to encourage more day feeding (and less at night!)

[pendulum]

DD is 18 weeks and BFed more or less on demand so far. Probably 6-7 feeds between 7am- 7pm.

Recently she has become a lot more distractible during the day- this has led to her taking less milk at each feed. At night, however, she takes on massive quantities- both boobs, 3 or 4 let-downs, reeeeaaaallllyyy concentrating and enjoying it. This all seems to have resulted in a downward spiral of less milk during day and more during night. While I don't mind the night feeds, I am a bit bothered that they are increasing at the expense of day feeds.

I know the distraction is a common problem but what have people done to overcome it? I have a 3 year old too so all the 'quiet room' stuff is quite unrealistic. Also how can I break the cycle we seem to have got into- is the only way to refuse her a feed at say 5am so that she will take a proper one at 7am?

thanks!

ooh fio you are offering me hope... well a little I suppose, have just noticed you are still up 2x a night

I want to give up too (well I do in my weak moments) but the little tyrant darling spits out anything bottle-shaped. Even with EBM in it.

Can I ask if you have A Cunning Plan for reducing night feeds or if you are just going with the flow?

DD1 didn't feed at night after 12 weeks so I am in new territory. And flipping knackered to boot.

Have you tried offering more feeds in the day, even though ds hasn't requested one?

If you can cluster feed him between say 3-6pm, and pick him up for a dreamfeed at 10.30pm, this may increase the daytime milk consumption and lessen the nightime?

hi MoveIt,
interesting point re cluster feeding- will try it. My RL friends have been advising to go the other way i.e. no feed between 2pm and 6pm, the theory being that she 'tanks up' properly before bed. But i don't think that would work- 4 hrs between feeds is a long time for DD (she's only 13lb) and she's often too tired to drink much at 6pm anyway.

So... am feeding her now (unsolicited) although she drained both boobs at 2pm. Will see how we get on!

I do really love BF and would be gutted to stop, but I have rarely had more than 2 1/2 hours straight sleep in the last 4 months and it's starting to do funny things to me.

fio, thanks for the reassurance. I am looking forward to the days of chicken casserole and apple crumble!

It sounds like you're both doing really well with bf'ing, and tbh switching to formula probably won't change anything.

I agree that not feeding between 2pm-6pm is a bad idea. Your dd will be starving and screaming and you will be pulling your hair out. That won't really help either of you will it?!

Do you currently do a dreamfeed? I used to pick ds up at 10.30pm (still asleep) and feed him. It took a few attempts for him to feed while still half asleep, but I really think it helped him to sleep for longer stretches at night.

Don't wish for the apple crumble too soon, cos when they've thrown what you've made them on the floor for the umpteenth time that day, you'll be remembering how easy it was just bf'ing

Thanks for the encouragement! There are days when I dream of formula in bottles that someone else can give, and days when I feel broken-hearted that she will one day stop feeding from me....

Yes, I do a dream-feed of sorts since DD wakes between 10-11pm every night for a feed. I go to bed around 9am to stock up on some sleep in advance. That was enough to push her through until 3am until recently, but she has been waking earlier (1am) and then again at 4.30. This is the killer because DH gets up for work at 5.30am then DD1 tends to wake around 6am. So effectively my day begins at 4.30. That's the feed I'm really keen to drop, especially as she isn't really hungry for her 7am feed. I look back on 11pm and 3am feeds with nostalgia!

Hello ladies - just to say that switching my DS to formula from BF-ing at 4 months didn't make any difference to his night waking. He was just as distracted on his bottles in the day as he was on the boob, and strangely I found it just as frustrating, and I find holding him to bottle feed him a lot heavier, if that makes sense. I weaned him at 5 months (two weeks ago) and that's the only thing that has made a difference to the night feeding. He still wakes though, because he's got a cold and also because he's teething Try and stick with the BF-ing - I sort of regret stopping when I did, but was finding it so difficult with my 2.5 year old DD causing mayhem and my dad is very ill right now, so I kind of needed to be able to leave DS for longer periods than between breastfeeds in order to visit him in hospital.

The closer they get to 6 months and weaning, the more likely, IMO they will need to feed again in the night, even if they stopped for a while, as they are getting bigger and just showing you they are getting ready to introduce solids. Good luck - and I sympathise with the lack of sleep.

thanks Sycamoretree- that's really given me food for thought. So easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the grass is greener.

Sorry about your dad and also that you regret giving up the BF, it is so hard with an older sib demanding attention all the time, isn't it? Especially when you know that you can't go back to sleep when the baby sleeps because you then have to shine a white-hot spotlight of attention on DC1.....

That's so true - and add to that the pressure that I never managed to BF DD beyond the first few days and you can see why I felt bad sitting for 30-45mins at a time with DS whilst she jumped around for attention. I couldn't even tell myself, "I did it for you, so I'll do it for him". Ho hum, have been on another thread, another lady with a "should I give up BF'ing at 6 weeks, it's so hard" etc. Makes you realise that we all go through such angst with BFing...I had no idea. With DD I thought I was the only person in the world who carried feelings of guilt about not succeeding in BFing...wish I'd known about MN then.