3 month old feeding (for comfort? To sleep?) 5/6 times a night.

[Sleepysleepysleep]

Hi All, I had good advice a couple of weeks ago about my DDs sleep issues. I created a sidecar cot and it helped hugely with resettling. Now I can feed her lying down and she falls asleep on the boob and I can slide away.

The problem is I now seem to be spending every 60/90 mins throughout the night feeding her lying down across that cot!

So she wakes a LOT. She takes the dummy but she won't be satisfied with it during the night and after 20 mins of holding it in, I just give up, exhausted, and feed her. Even if it's only been an hour since last feed.

And I honestly get the impression she's not that hungry. She actively feeds for only about a minute or two before falling asleep. Possibly because she still hasn't digested the last feed!

So I am starting to suspect she is using me as her preferred dummy.

But shes still too little for sleep training. What do you all suggest?

Your baby is being a normal baby. They need to feed frequently through the night. Some nights more, other nights less.

Breastfeeding is a wonderful source of comfort for your baby as well as food.

Just go with it, honestly, it's much easier than stressing about the details.

What Medic said.

As she gets older, she should start to feed less overnight. Then there will be times that she feeds a lot more again and you will despair but if you are keen to BF, just go with it and make sure you get as much sleep as you can.

3 months old is still very little, too early to sleep train as you say. But you can work towards better sleep habits, it'll just take a little time.

I'd try putting her down in the evening as awake as possible, as the way you put them to sleep in the evening is what they will be looking for the rest of the night. You want her to go to sleep on her own, you can't achieve this in a couple of nights, it's something that your baby will need a bit of time to learn.
So if you currently feed her to sleep in the evenings, I'd feed her sitting up, then wind her, then put her down. She should be drowsy, not fully awake and not fully asleep. If she fusses, try to settle her with the dummy. If she won't have that, feed her to sleep and try again the next day! You'll get there eventually. Once she has learnt to drop off on her own, she should wake less during the night.

Also, remember that everything is a phase and things change really quickly at that age!

This is perfectly normal behaviour for a breastfed baby. If you're on Facebook have a look at the Milk Meg's page - a lactation consultant who discusses normal breastfeeding/sleep etc! She is great.

I have to say I often used to put my baby down to sleep awake (as he didn't always fall asleep whilst nursing) and it didn't make a bit of difference to his sleep. He's always been very wakeful. Since he started crawling he has always nursed to sleep which is so much easier.

Please don't feel that you or your baby are doing anything wrong, you are providing them with a wonderful form of cuddles and love during the night when he/she feels at her most vulnerable and in need of her mum!

As a pp said everything is a phase. DS2 has always fed a lot during the night. The only way I managed when he was smaller was having DP take him downstairs when he woke at 5 and leaving me to sleep till 7. He's 17 months now and he does still wake occasionally, has a few comfort sucks then goes back to sleep. It's much easier now. At 3 months I think he was just as you describe but honestly I've forgotten already.

All normal stuff as pps have explained..I just create an armchair of sorts out of pillows and a pregnancy pillow with arms. They just sleep on me, boob in mouth, and I doze..Currently got a 10 month old on me like that. Her older brother is the same. I am not sleep deprived much.They do eventually get there on their own with sleep, so I let nature .Take its course.