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How much do you breastfeed at night?

1 reply

Sls668 · 27/01/2021 22:36

My baby is 11 weeks old and is breastfed. There have been a few minor hiccups along the way but generally it’s going pretty well. She is going 3(ish) hours between feeds through the day, her feeds are long, usually minimum 30 minutes but often 40 minutes and she regularly falls asleep when feeding. She cluster feeds from 7pm until around 10pm but sleeps at the same time.
In the night, we start the night with her in her bedside crib but it doesn’t really go very well. She wakes often, usually every 1-2 hours (sometimes less 🙈) and I feed her back to sleep. We usually end up co-sleeping when I’ve had enough of staying up to feed her, we follow the safety guidelines and, while not in my long term plans, I’m ok with this for now. I had just kind of accepted that this was the norm for babies of her age and was ok with this set up. Personally I think she sometimes feeds for comfort more than because she’s hungry.
However, my HV thinks I should feed her more regularly through the day (every 2 hours) so that she will wake up less in the night. She thinks she is hungry in the night because she doesn’t feed enough in the day.
Does this sound right? I thought it was standard for babies of her age to start going longer between day feeds but also for a lot of babies to still need lots of comfort through the night - I mean officially she’s still in the fourth trimester. Is my HV right or shall I just keep going on how I was? How often do other breastfed babies feed throughout the day and night?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
SkyTrees · 29/01/2021 23:16

My 11 week EBF baby feeds every 1-3and a half hrs during the day. He is a very efficient feeder and probably has too much milk tbh as he is always overflowing! He generally then has final feed before bed at about 8pm. Then it varies, but he regularly goes 6hrs til waking for another feed (falls asleep about 9/9.30). Then it’s normally 3-4hrs between any other feeds over night. He normally wakes about 6.30 at which point I bring him into bed for feeding, cuddles and dozing til 9ish. We did cosleep for the first 9 weeks but I realised we didn’t need to as he settles well in his little crib.

Very different from my first child, who slept with my boob in his mouth for the first 18mo the til I night weaned!

But for what it’s worth, I think that you are doing right just following your baby’s cues and meeting her needs. All babies are different really.

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