I'm sure most will agree that night feeds are the center of conversation when talking to anyone about babies. For me this was always the case before we had our little girl. It made us scared and nervous as we can both be heavy sleepers. All sorts of things ran through our head such as 'what if we sleep through our baby crying' or 'what if we don't wake up on time to give her the feed she needs' and lots more, this is perfectly normal to be concerned. There are ways to help make things easier for you, your partner and little baby.
We tried many different things and ultimately found the best for us that may help you:
We wanted to breast feed but due to our little girl having a tongue tie she couldn't latch on, therefore I began to pump. I would pump before bed to have bottles ready for the late night feeds. We found purchasing a small portable fridge for our room was best. Pumping was great for night time as night feeds could be split between us before Aaron returned to work. The milk I pumped before bed would be stored in the fridge which was cool but not too cold for baby to drink but cold enough to keep milk for overnight hours. (If the milk is too cold, a kettle and bowl will heat it up to room temp within minutes.) Having a little milk station in the room or upstairs with a little fridge, kettle, bowl and bottles and if using formula then a tin of formula and thermos with cooled boiled water was very helpful, it proved to be time saving which meant more minutes to sleep and stopped us having to run up and down back and forth from the kitchen. We found even few minutes extra sleep made a huge difference while I was recovering and having a newborn.
Dream Feeds: You may have heard of this term or perhaps not. We hadn't until we were already doing this and someone told me that it was called dream feeding. This was one of the best things we ever did. Dream feeding basically means lifting your sleeping baby and offering them a feed (bottle or breast) before they wake up crying and hungry. This prevents their sleep being disturbed more disruptively and your sleep as well. It also helps baby stay asleep longer without milk and gradually lessens middle of the night feeds. Our little girl started sleeping full 9 hours without waking up for a feed by roughly 5 or 6 weeks old. We began dream feeding from the start and would give her a dream feed between 11pm and 12am just before we went to sleep. Then when she stirred a tiny bit during the night we gradually reduced her wake time to complete dream feeding during the night which she then stopped waking up for. She then began sleeping through until 8am or 9am which was so amazing. We will definitely be using the same method for baby number 2 that is due in October.
Comments