elp me get my dd to drink from both boobs in the night

[trishpops]

my d is 4 wks old, 8lbs 8 born and now 11lbs and will only drink from one breast during the night before falling into such a deep sleep that even changing her nappy using cold water ina very brightly lit room and blowing on her face wont wake her...the problem is she wakes two hours later hungry again. during the day she feeds from both sides at eacg feed and can sleep upwards of 4 hrs at a time in the afternoon. how can i get this to happen at night? some people have advised me to wake her during the day but i'm worried she is too young for this. btw she is demand fed.

Hmm. You are already doing what I was going to suggest (and what the hospital suggested too). What is she wearing for the feed?

I used to strip DS1 (v.sleepy slow feeder) to his vest or nappy for the feed.

Was she premature? Sometimes they are v. sleepy. Sorry, it's early days (might not seem that way to you).

Maybe make her less comfortable during the day so she sleeps less (sounds cruel!)

Sounds ok to me. She is sleeping which is a lot more than my Dd did for about 15 months. Used to be up between 2 and 5 times a night with her during that time and fed every time...
I'd just go with the flow at the moment and see how she is in a month or so.

Can I ask why you want her to feed from both breasts?
IF it's because you wish to get more sleep could you try co-sleeping?
It's quite normal for babies this young to want feeding that often and not to take both breasts, all yo need to do really is make sure you offer the alternate breast at the next feed and keep offering both at feeds she is more awake with.
It shouldn't effect your milk supply as it's two hourly, if it was only one breast then 6 hours sleep I'd be more worried, but it sounds perfectly normal to me.

trishpops - please don't try to make your dd do this! It's not nice for anyone to be forced awake with cold water and face blowing....you risk her 'tuning out' to avoid these experiences. She is behaving normally, and yes, you can gently encourage her to swap day time for night time by feeding her more often in the way....just by keeping her close to you, skin to skin, you will encourage more waking and feeding.

I don't agree with making babies less comfortable in the day, and to my mind, it is, if not cruel, then somewhat unkind.

I have to say at 4 four weeks how much ds slept in the dya made no difference to how much he slept at night and still doesn't now a 3 months.

2 hours between feeds at 4 weeks sounds about right tbh

i don't think changing her bottom with cold water or gently blowing on her face once is cruel. i change her bottom all the time with cold water and she never cries, except about the first two times ever. and keeping her close to me in the daytime settles her off to sleep in a flash so that theory won't work!! i really want her, at this age at least, to sleep when she wants and feed whan she wants, but i just want to encourage a little more consectutive feeding at night because it t kaes me a long time to get to sleep and i'm not getting more than a hour and a half at a time tops. it's getting me down.

I can understand you must be feeling knackered, my ds was the same at 4 weeks. I would say unless she's pooed then don't change her nappy as I think this just means you have wake up properly making it harder to get back to sleep.

I would just feed her lying down and then pop her straight back to bed. I think you'll find it easier to get back to sleep

No, I didn't say the washing with cold water was 'cruel' - I did suggest deliberately keeping her uncomfortable in the daytime was unkind. The cold water wash - cold enough to try to wake her up - is just not nice. We should ask ourselves if we would like it when we were fast-a-cosy-sleep! You may be making her fall asleep more deeply, too - babies can do this if they need to 'switch off'.

Cruel? Possibly, it's a case of perception and opinion though.
What I would suggest is rather than try to change your baby's feeding habits, change your sleeping habits.
Where is she sleeping?

Also, aside, it's best, IMO&IME to keep rooms dark, and not change nappies unless needed to at night time. It will encourage a good day/night distinction which, IME, helps a great deal with sleeping issues, I have just had m third Dc, and so far have never had a problem with them going to bed, getting themselves to sleep and starting to sleep through a bit longer once their tummy can cope with it.

at night after bath, i bf her in our bed, dimly lit room, then pop her in moses basket next to bed. i have tried bf lying down but find it very difficult to get a comfy latch, i have huge boobs which sems to make it harder. incidentally thw water is room temp, i fill a small bowl with warnm just before bath time, then use it over night. every one keeps telling me to sleep in the day but it's not easy to do that for me. i spent 4 hours in bed yest early eve while dad took over but i just lay awake for 3 of those. i feellikeshit. going to log off now as i can't handle mumsnet this morning.

Could you call a BFC to help you get a better latch laying down?
It would help you a lot if you could co-sleep.

tiktok (and OP!) what I meant by "less comfortable" was that both my DS would sleep for hours if wrapped up v. warm or asleep on me.

When they had been asleep for a while I would always put them down or if they were in their moses basket just lift the blanket off a bit. Then they usually woke up naturally about 20 minutes later.

trishpops I hope you're ok, I felt exactly like you with DS1, it took me ages to get back off to sleep or sleep during the day and I was shattered.

I used to spend ages analysing every little thing I'd done to try and make a difference to the nights.

With DS2 I had learnt how to cat-nap and relax but he had bad reflux and only slept through at 16mths (now!) yet I was less tired and stressed about it.

The only way for me to get any sleep in the early days was to get someone to take the baby out for a bit - otherwise I just lay awake waiting for him to wake and I found the unpredictability v. hard.

Hope you're ok?

Trishpops - I am in a very similar boat (4 week old, feeding every 1.5 to 2 hours at night.) Like you I wanted to try to get her to eat more at night less often, but that meant I had to wake her up properly and then it took ages to get her back to sleep. I seem to get more sleep by letting her feed dozily for 10-15 mins, she goes straight back to sleep, and then doing it again in a couple of hours time. Much better than waking her fully and then spending an hour getting her back to sleep. Good luck! (I'll be thinking of you at 12.00. 200am, 4am, 6...!)

Oh Trishpops, you are doing all the right things please don't feel that you aren't.
I didn't have time to do a lengthy post earlier but my DS2 was just the same at 4 weeks and it is truelly knackering.

I found it hard to adjust because DS1 slept through at 6 weeks and although I was doing everything the same with ds2 he had different ideas!! He feeds on one side for a few mins and then even world war 3 wouldn't wake him.

I used to change his nappy in the night in hopes of waking him but it never did. Took me a while to accept that no matter what we do ultimately newborns call the shots!

Anyway things that have made it easier for me have been feeding lying down and yes I agree it's hard at first to find the right position (I lie ds in the crook of my arm and have a pillow under my elbow to get him at the right level), I stopped doing nappy changes unless he'd pooed and I semi co sleep. So if he's unsettled he stays in with me or if I drift off whilst feeding.

DS2 is 13 weeks now and still wakes a couple of times for food. Can I just say that too that it can all change very quickly. I think it was about 5 weeks and he suddenly went three/four hours between. So on the bright side this time next week your little one may be doing a longer stretch.

Resting in the day is important, even if you can't sleep just lying down with your eyes closed will help your body reenergise.

It's early days, your doing great