BFing and starting to sleep through the night...

[Yankunian]

So my 8-week old daughter seems to be starting to sleep through the night... for the past few nights she has had her last feed at 9:30 or 10pm and then gone down until 6 or 7am, sleeping right through the feed she usually had at 3/4am.

What am I supposed to do when I wake up at 4 ready to feed? I am bursting with milk at this point. The past 2 nights I got up and expressed the breast she would have fed from (and then never got back to sleep...grr.) But should I stop doing this, as my production needs to adapt to her schedule?

Another question: Is it OK for her to be sleeping through at this point? I don't think I should be waking her since we want to encourage her to sleep, right? But a book I have says that she isn't big enough to sleep through until she's 11 pounds (she's 9.12) and I should wake her for a feed. Is this right? I'm a bit confused.

Your milk will adapt,
DS1 stopped waking for his 3am feed at about the same age, it was uncomfortable for a couple of days but it didn't hinder me feeding him until he was nearly 12 months

if she is asleep then leave her!

That seems sensible to me. Thanks.

Your name rocks by the way.

I'll second that - your body will adapt after a couple of uncomfortable nights. Same thing happened to me, so I expressed a little to ease the pressure, but not as much as DD would have had for her feed.

enjoy the extra sleep!

Lucky you!!

Enjoy the sleep. Can she have a word with my teething 10 mth DS?

thanks

Wow, that's fab. Ds2 is nearly 6 months and showing no signs of sleeping through. I'd take the engorgement any day!!

I'm soooooooooooo jealous

Okay, sounds like we're all in agreement then. Good! Thanks everyone. And who knows how long this is going to last - she'll probably be up three times in the middle of the night tonight after all this fuss...

Me too smallwhitecat, bummer huh!

Nonsense - about the 11lbs!

DS slept through from 12days old and was fully BF, DD took until 6 weeks, it nearly killed me. Last feed was 10-11pm then through till 6-7am.

Just enjoy it! Don't tell too many other mums though, you might get lynched.

Are you sure you've read the book right?
Only I know a lady on my post-natal thread also has a book that says don't expect them to sleep through until about 11lbs because most babies tummies can't hold enough to last them that long, nothing about waking them though.

FWIW, DD was sleeping through(which Docs only count as five hours straight btw not a whole night) by about 5 weeks, she was prem so was only about 6lb by then. DS2 is now 15lb5oz at 13 weeks and still not sleeping through all night, he does a stretch of about 8 hours from bed til 4:30am some nights, other nights does 12 hours.

This is what she said id said if it's the same book (baby week by week or something?)

"From around the time your baby is 3 months old, you can start to look forward to getting a bit more sleep. It's still far too soon to be putting your baby to bed and forgetting about him until morning, but 70% of babies this age will sleep for five hours or more at some stage during the night.
If your baby is having five hours of uninterrupted sleep at night then, medically speaking, he is sleeping 'through the night'. Of course a doctor's definition of 'through the night' differs from a parent's, and you are no doubt expecting that your baby will eventually sleep for about 12 hours at night. This will happen, but not yet. If your baby isn't having a five-hour chunk of night-sleep, it could be that he doesn't weigh enough to be able to go this long without food - babies should weigh at least 5 kg/11 lb to go for 5 hours without food...
...don't be too disheartened if your baby isn't yet able to sleep for five hours during the night as most babies sort themselves out eventually, and up to 80% of all nine-month-old babies can sleep for at least 5 hours at night."