help - night feeds v often as baby falls asleep during feeds

[earlycomputers]

Hi - my 6 week old has this annoying pattern of feeding during the night - basically he feeds fairly well at 10.30pm, then cries for milk at around 2am - all well and good, but when I feed him at this time he only feeds for 3 to 5 minutes or so and then falls asleep. I have tried nappy changing him/winding, not swaddling during feeding and tickling feet etc to wake him but no success. This is again not much of a problem, until he then wakes up a couple of hours later at 4am for more milk (presumably because he didn't feed well at the 2am one). This 4am feed he only spends a couple of minutes or so at the breast and falls asleep. He then cries for milk at 5.30am and then 6.30am - again each time only spending a few minutes at the breast and falling asleep. He basically doesn't appear to feed enough and then wakes up more and more frequently presumably from hunger? My health visitor suggested ignoring him at the 2am feed in the hope he will go back to sleep, but this hasn't worked. She also suggested I express some milk into a bottle and offer this at the night feedings after he has been at the breast - but he doesn't really take to it and still falls asleep. Can anyone advise? Many thanks in advance.

He's very young, he may need to feed this often at that age. How often does he feed during the day? I would say try to ensure you get 5/6 good feeds into him during 7am and 10pm. At 6 weeks old he is also probably using you to get back to sleep, he's probably not used to getting himself to sleep yet. IMO 6 weeks is quite young to get them to self settle but you can try helping him do this in the hope he will learn as he gets older but really he's so tiny he probably just wants his mummy!

As another way of keeping him awake during feeds try stroking his palm and cheek or I used to blow on DS's face (he made very cute faces when I did this )

HTH