9 week constant feeding first part of night

[Babbington]

My daughter is just 9 weeks old but 5 weeks premature, and seems to be learning about night and day with longer stretches of sleep at night and feeding more often in the day.

However she always seems to take a long time over what I see as the first night feed. I’ve kind of accepted that this will take a long time but interested in others’ experiences or thoughts- could I be doing anything differently?

We don’t have any bedtime routine other than the below as she feels to young for it to be useful but open to suggestions!

She’s with us downstairs until we go up to bed at about 10/10:30. No matter when I’ve last fed downstairs the act of going upstairs usually prompts her to want a feed again. My husband keeps her going and changes her in the nursery with a dim lamp on while I race around getting ready for bed so I can go straight to sleep after the feed

Then we sit in the dim nursery and do a feed. This is where I feed through the night as I am not comfortable sitting up in bed doing it.

It can then be until 1/2am or even 3am before I get to go to sleep as she’s either doing a really long feed on both boobs or falling asleep on the boob but wakes and wants more when I try to put her down. She sleeps in our room in a Moses basket next to the bed. The only light in here is the Gro Thermometer night light. When she eventually is sleepy enough to go down I walk slowly with her across the small the dark landing to our room. It can take her a while to settle with rocking and Ewan the Sheep, or she might only sleep for 30 mins til she stirs and I comfort her off again

After that she will sleep til 5/6am so I do get a good stretch of 4 hours sleep before feeding again much more efficiently and going down easier at 6/7 and then I’ll sleep another 2 or 3 hours to mid morning

So I’m not complaining about the amount of sleep I get - I get what I need eventually but mornings are generally a write off for plans!

But it would be lovely to be able to go to bed sooner than 3-4 hours after we ‘go up to bed’

Any ideas?! 🙂

What I'd suggest is getting her changed into night ware (and washed/bath, if you wish) earlier. Not a ridged time, but any time she happens you be awake between 6pm-8pm.

Still keep her downstairs with you, as you were. But it means that when you take her up to bed with you at 10.30pm, all she will need is a feed. Don't change her nappy unless she has pooed or its leaked.

It's normal for a breastfed baby you cluster feed through the evening, this is often from around teatime through the evening. So if sounds like your baby is cluster feeding from 10.30pm, rather than from 6pm ish which is usual.

You could try settling with a dummy. That often helps.

wear*

This is completely normal, it's called cluster feeding and my little boy did exactly the same. He did slowly reduce the length of these mammoth feeds and by 4 months was going down about 7/8 for a few hours! Can you feed lying down? That way you can rest too xx

Perfectly normal. It’s the way a growing baby increases your milk supply to keep pace with their need calorific requirements.

Oh def second the not nappy change unless a poo! And yep have also been there with the cluster feeding!

Thanks everyone so far, yes I think you’re right on the cluster feeding! Sometimes she starts doing it earlier in the evening too but I don’t mind so much while downstairs watching TV!

I’m sure there was a patch around 5 weeks when she was more efficient at the 10/11pm feed and I’d get 4/5 hours til 3am then another 4 hours til 7am! Although it’s all a bit of a blur!

I’d thought about leaving the nappy. We always change the happy before a feed - drummed into us during the 8 day hospital stay - but I’d thought about leaving it unless poo during the nights. Trouble is I can never tell if there’s a poo or not in there unless I’ve heard it squelch! Whenever I sniff her it smells the same as there’s often a tiny bit of poo at every change...

Update: She was unusually zonked between 6pm-9pm on me then in her Moses basket downstairs so we did change and feed at 9 - fed downstairs but it was a mammoth 1hr 20 min feed - when she came off and was sleepy in my arms I put her in Moses basket and we went upstairs.

I had to laugh because as soon as I put her down her eyes snapped open and she was trying to eat her hand! My usual ‘she wants more!’ cue in the night.

But we took her up and left her to see if she’d settle with Ewan playing while I got ready for bed - she did and I tentatively got into bed as soon as I was ready! She was still grumbling a little at 12 so I got up and patted her and rocked slightly and that was enough to send her off til 3am, which has felt like a lovely long sleep early in the night!

We’re now feeding and hoping she’ll go through to 7am after this

So basically we just started the cluster feed earlier which helped - I’ll look for opportunity to do this as much as possible and do it downstairs rather than upstairs.

I also learned that I can leave her to settle through signs for which I’d usually pick her up and feed again!

Hmmmmmm!