My EBF baby is occasionally able to go as much as 8hr stretches between feeds at night - which is great from a sleep pov, but makes me feel guilty.
Reason for guilt is these stretches aren't completely naturally occuring as she will lightly rouse several times in that 8hr period, but will easily be resettled with a dummy. So I could feed her without having to wake her, but I would rather we all got the longer stretch of sleep.
I dont let her 'cry it out' or anything, if she isn't easily resettled I would of course feed her (this is what happens most nights in fact - she will stir, I'll have a go at gently resettling her (stroking face/dummy etc) but at least twice in the night she won't resettle and it will become apparent she wants a feed or a change.
Is it bad to use dummy to resettle baby, where without it, she would demand a feed? I feel like the dummy basically stretches her feed intervals which is useful, but sometimes when it's as much as 8hrs I worry that she is too young for such a long stretch without food?
When I do feed her after a long stretch she isn't especially hungry during that feed compared to usual, but I think she does often feed more frequently in the subsequent day. This makes me think it isn't doing her harm, because she is able to compensate and she maybe was more sleepy than hungry on that occasion?
She was a normal birth weight, and was gaining well at her last check (but hasn't been weighed in a few weeks, though I can see she is growing bigger). She has normal number of wet and soiled nappies per day.