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Old July 22nd 07, 05:02 PM posted to misc.kids.breastfeeding
Sarah Vaughan
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Posts: 443
Default Tips to decrease nighttime nursing?

wrote:
[...]
The current pattern is as follows. DD eats most efficiently at night.
We "put" her "down" (i.e. swaddle and rock her) at 7 p.m. She's
usually in a deep sleep by 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. She rouses lightly (not
fully awake) around 9 or 10 p.m., during the 11-12 o'clock hour,
during the 3-4 o'clock hour, the 5-6 o'clock hour, and then again
around 8 a.m. At this point she's pretty wet so I change her (we use
cloth diapers but that's another story) and she awakens. I feed her at
each of these intervals. The feedings are quick (15-20 minutes) and
very efficient - excellent latch, excellent pump, no slurping, no
smacking, just soft happy moans. She actually never really wakes up -
just makes enough "hungry" noises to awaken me at which point I pick
her up and put her to the breast.


She may not need feeding at each of these intervals. Often babies go
into a light sleep, make some noise, and then move into a deeper sleep
cycle spontaneously without needing anything doing. It might be worth
trying other methods to settle her at the middle of the night feedings -
patting, soothing shushing sounds, a dummy (pacifier) - or just waiting
5 - 10 minutes to see whether the hungry noises are actually settling
and she's going back to sleep in that time. Obviously, if she isn't
settling down or seems to be getting more upset, have a low threshold
for going ahead with a feed. Also, I wouldn't recommend trying to deal
with more than one night waking in a row by this method (if you get her
through one waking period without a feed that she's used to, she's
likely to be hungry by the next).

I take it from what you've written that you can't manage to get sleep
and nurse her at the same time? Working on this would be an alternate
way to go. You may well find that a few weeks down the line you're a
lot better at nursing while side-lying and can just surface part way to
latch her on and then go back to sleep yourself.

[...]
In addition, I've also thought about introducing the swing (i.e. the
Karp method) BUT I'd much prefer if DH led the way on this one ...


Not sure what benefit that would give you. Getting her back to sleep
isn't currently a problem - as far as I can see, all this would do (if
anything) would be to swap one method of getting her to sleep for
another that would still require input on your part and probably make it
harder for you just to get back to sleep. It's also possible it might
wake her up more. Maybe I'm missing something?

[...]
Finally, in part because we've had a grandma here for the past 6
weeks, DH is worn, held, or rocked nearly all day (basically the only
time she's out of someone's arms is when she wants to be on the floor
or sit in her bouncing chair so that she can get an unobstructed view
of the room). We bed share at night and she sleeps in a special co-
sleeping sleep positioner. I'm thrilled that my daughter doesn't know
a world where she's not held all the time and clearly at night she
doesn't feel the need to "comfort nurse", which is great (she makes up
for during the day). BUT DH and I are going to get busier in September
and she'll be doing more sitting and sleeping alone during the day.
(We aren't doing daycare - but rather will be taking turns working at
home.)


Can't you hold her while working? I would have thought that with a good
baby carrier this would be quite feasible.


All the best,

Sarah
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