night feeds

[mazbogs]

just wondered, as a new mum, at night do you wait for your baby to fully rouse /cry before you pick 'em up in the hope they feed really well the more awake they are. or do you feed them when you hear them sucking their hand/tongue so they're easier to put down after?

its entirely up to you! my baby (13 wks) sometimes wakes, cries loudly but still sometimes goes back to sleep so i wait a few minutes. even if she was half asleep becasue i change her nappy she wakes when i do that

heres what i do

hear baby cry, wait til i think she wont go back to sleep. go into her room and feed her, dim light, keeping blankets around her. i have a big comfy chair in her room for feeding

dh brings me a cup of tea

after i feed her, change her nappy. sit back down in chair, she will be chatty but i dont interact much, just smile. she will eventually start to get tired again, i wait til she is nearly asleep, give her a rock then put her back down, stroking her head.

im usually in and out in an hr

My DS2 is 19 weeks. I think tend to feed him before he makes any noise, as he's next to me in bed. I'm not 100% sure what I do, as I seem to do it without actually waking up. I try to switch sides if I wake enough.

I don't change nappies, or even get out of bed, in the night if I can help it.

Hi,

I always had to wait til they were fully crying, otherwise they tended to fall asleep halfway thru the feed, and wake again shortly after still hungry. I heard soemwhere that if you grab them too quick, they dont have chance to realise why they are crying, I don't know if it's true or not.

I expressed my milk a lot of the time, cos I found it quicker and easier, so I would leave baby to cry for 5 mins while I heated the milk, then fed him/her and they usually went straight back to sleep, full and contented.

I also kept lights low, never talked to them during the night, no playing or anything. Sounds mean, but I'm not terribly sociable after 11pm with babies, and it paid off, cos they both slept thru by 6 weeks!

I tend to wait until I'm sure she needs a feed but before she gets really upset. Sometimes I don't mean to but she sleeps in her own room (btw she's 18 weeks) so it sometimes takes me a while to hear her ! I feed her and change her nappy before switching to the second breast because she tends to fall asleep after the 1st one. I don't interact with her much, just smile, and onto the 2nd breast. She again falls asleep when she's full, and off to bed ! she wakes up most of the time when I put her down but it's not a problem, she's learned to go back to sleep on her own. A feed takes about an hour.