night time breast feeding...?

[frannie2013]

hi,
i'm hoping to breastfeed DC1 once s/he arrives in a few weeks time. baby will sleep next to me at night so that i can pick him/her up and breastfeed easily.
however i'm wondering if this might get really boring (!) as i've heard that each feed can last up to an hour and there could be up to 4 feeds a night.
what do people do for this time???!!! in the day i'm assuming ill be watching tv or chatting to OH or friends etc. we don't have a tv in the bedroom but could put one in there, or perhaps download stuff onto an ipad.
my attention span is awful at the best of times. i'm sure i'll be cooing over baby as well! but i'm sure there will be some feeds where i'm sat there thinking omg i'm shattered and a bit of diversion might be nice.
any thoughts? x

I re watched every episode of the vampire diaries on my tablet, also read a lot

In the early days I'd take DD into the living room and watch The Hobbit on netflix over and over. And over.

Then I learnt how to feed lying down in bed and it got a lot easier because I could close my eyes and rest. But my DD didn't normally feed for long during the night!

I had a TV and watched that, later I learnt to feed lying down so just snoozed

How about a kindle paperwhite?

I MN on my phone or tablet. watched lots of on demand TV in the early days.

Now I feed half asleep

I recommend feeding every 2 hrs at least during the day, and then I found mine fed little at night after about 2 weeks. And fairly efficiently

So something like 8am -11pm feed on demand, then at night just around 3am so only one waking (15 mins). Let cluster feed 8pm-11pm with you on sofa whilst your awake so you get more chance of decent sleep.

From 8 ish weeks I didn't usually feed between 11pm and 7/8am

Have tv/movie on with subtitles.
Listen to whole albums at a time on ipod

Kindle was a godsend! You can do it one handed and you never lose your page!

Er, feeding every two hours and cluster feeding the the evening is a good idea, but is in no way guaranteed to reduce night feeds after 2 weeks - Artandco was lucky!!

I had the TV on quiet in the bedroom, or read on a Kindle, good for one-handed reading.

It is boring op! As pp say a kindle helps-I listened to music, read and messed about on mn. It's easier when/if you can arrange pillows such that you can bf and have both hands free.

Cobo - lucky but it's worked 5 times!

Very lucky!! :) Great to try it, and feeding on demand is a good idea anyway, I just think that saying 'if you do this, the baby will do this' when it comes to breastfeeding is sometimes not very helpful, because other babies don't tend to follow the same rules. I fed at least every two hours and cluster fed in the evenings, and was certainly not down to one feed a night by 2 weeks. I don't think I was doing anything wrong, that was just my baby.

Babies vary hugely, my first would take 45 mins upwards to feed, my second never took more than 15 mins to clear both sides! For night feeds with my first I'd read a book with a dim light on, or just feed her lying down so I was still dozing. I'd rouse again after about an hour and she'd usually have finished and be fast asleep and so would move her back to the crib then. The best bit about breastfeeding is how easy the night feeds are, you don't even need to get out of bed. Just feed on demand and be prepared for cluster feeding, but not all babies do it and there's no way my son would have fed two-hourly during the day. Just go with what works for your baby.

Two options: read stuff on a phone/ tablet/ kindle eg mumsnet, novels, twitter etc (I wouldn't watch tv on it as would wake up DH and possibly prevent baby getting back to sleep, though you could use earphones I suppose)

OR read and observe the guidelines for safe co-sleeping and snooze while you feed!

Safe co-sleeping guidance

www.pinterandmartin.com/resources.html

The best thing you could do is learn to BF lying down. Seriously.

Yes as pp said, bf lying down. I've found on a couple of occasions that dd (6 weeks) has found the boob and latched herself on before I've even woken up properly! I believe that there is something in the bf that makes you more drowsy so you can function reasonably well despite night feeding. Do keep some water or a drink near you though as I found I got really dehydrated at night in the early weeks.
Kindle I also recommend, it's kept me sane through the cluster feeds and when dd decides to lie on the boob and not give it back... :)
Congrats OP. I wish you a good birth!

Snooze, you will need the rest! I had a lovely midwife who did one of my home visits in the early days and showed me how to bf lying down, this really helped.

With DS1 I watched things on Netflix in the night. With DS2 I learnt to feed lying down asap and then slept through the feeds!

My top tip would be get your partner to sleep somewhere else for the first few weeks so you can have the bed to yourself. Mine both fed at least 2 hourly day and night at first.

Just a note... not everyone can BF lying down or with any risk they will fall asleep (sleepwalkers/sleep disorders for example!).

I find it a bit that this is the universally given solution by all BF organisations etc'.
They say everyone should BF.
They say the main solution to everything is to co-sleep and feed lying down/sleepily.
Then you email them and say "I can't do this safely. What do you recommend?" and you get a weird 'umm are you sure? We're not sure. Ask someone local' vague email reply.

Once again the mantra of everyone should BF turns out to be everyone should but if you're middle class in perfect health with a big bed it helps.

I tried BF lying down and yes it was lovely as I could snooze at the same time but quite often dd would bring the milk up as she was in too horizontal of a position. I tried to wedge a pillow underneath to angle her a bit but it didn't really work. It was easier to sit up and hold her rather than have to clean up the mess in the middle of the night. I did find it VERY difficult to stay awake, the problem wasn't really boredom but an absolute inability to keep my eyes open for 30 minutes.

squizita, on a thread like this people can only talk from their own experience. What do you really expect people to say? I'm not a breastfeeding org volunteer.

I watched zillions of episodes one born every minute on the laptop with earphones in and cried a lot. It was lovely and hormonal and mushy and with good support in the days so I got time to nap not a bad experience at all.

I did breastfeed a lot lying down but not for the first few weeks. Baby just seemed a bit small and needed more support.

Get netflix & a tablet. Saved my life

I found bf made me so drowsy and sleepy that it solved my 5 year old long insomnia problem. In between feeds I slept SO WELL!

Yes to Netflix! Watched tons on my iPhone!

I also did all my Christmas shopping in the middle of the night!