Wife and I just had our first baby. Wife is breastfeeding and we have heard multiple things about how often we need to feed her. Nights are pretty miserable right now. Any tips to make her sleep better or things you've done that make your nights more manageable?

rules

Wait a year. The lack of sleep will impact your memory so it won't seem so bad after the fact.

What's best image hosting site? I feel kinda nervous uploading pic of new baby online

Different for everyone. Ours was kept on a feeding schedule that got stretched until the kid slept through the night.

Whiskey. For both you and the baby.

Feed baby when it is hungry. It really sucks but this is what you signed up for. The first few weeks are really difficult but it gets easier! Have mama practice side-lying nursing so she and baby can get a little more rest.

If you substitute bottle feeding at night without concurrently pumping, it tells the breasts to make less milk and can harm supply. It is honestly easier to just nurse the baby and put it back in bassinet or sidecar crib.

Schedules/routines can work later on but when baby is tiny you should never take away food or let them cry to "teach" them to sleep longer. Good luck, we're all pulling for you.

Every three hours for the first three to four months. Then around four months you can feed at 10 pm or so and then around 5 am.

With twins we were both awake for each feeding.

Cradle and Swing was the best thing for us. Daughter had days and nights backward.

Be thankful she's able to nurse and do everything you can to help elsewhere.

Bourbon and benedryl

I have a Phd in small human development, and have a highly qualified answer to your question, but first...

Let see them plumped up baby feeders!

Jersey Girl said:

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Feed baby when it is hungry. It really sucks but this is what you signed up for. The first few weeks are really difficult but it gets easier! Have mama practice side-lying nursing so she and baby can get a little more rest.

If you substitute bottle feeding at night without concurrently pumping, it tells the breasts to make less milk and can harm supply. It is honestly easier to just nurse the baby and put it back in bassinet or sidecar crib.

Schedules/routines can work later on but when baby is tiny you should never take away food or let them cry to "teach" them to sleep longer. Good luck, we're all pulling for you.

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NICU put ours on a rigid schedule that we keep even today. We've dropped the frequency of feedings but maintain a consistent schedule.

your problem is solved.

We? You have tits that make milk? Let her handle it, and tell her to keep it down when she wakes you up. And, when she *****es about not getting enough sleep (because they always do) tell her you are the man and you have to go out and work your ass off while she gets to stay at home all day lying on her ass doing nothing.

We... wtf, you did your part, now tell her to take care of hers.

Ragoo said:

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Every three hours for the first three to four months. Then around four months you can feed at 10 pm or so and then around 5 am.

With twins we were both awake for each feeding.

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gawd, with our twins and the 3-4 hours, one of us would just barely finish and head back to sleep before the other had to wake up for the next round. Its amazing what the brain tries to forget.

SoupNazi2001 said:

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Ragoo said:

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Every three hours for the first three to four months. Then around four months you can feed at 10 pm or so and then around 5 am.

With twins we were both awake for each feeding.

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What? Maybe for twins. Our guy was going 7 hours at 8 weeks in his crib (i.e. Not in our bedroom).

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mine were born nearly 5 weeks premature. So 3-4 months is about 8 weeks full term. Forgot that conversion for my initial post.

Schedule, Schedule, Schedule...

If you haven't yet, read the book Baby Wise. That was the most helpful book for us. It promotes feeding scheduling. We started the method at about 3 weeks old and by 6 weeks old ours was sleeping from 9pm to 4 am. That might not seem great, but when you've been waking up every 2-3 hours, it's HUGE.

Also, if she is comfortable pumping, she can pump and have a bottle ready that you can give the baby at one of the night feeding times. Mom can get a 5-6 hour stretch of sleep, an you get a one on one feeding time. (You do have to be careful with this because some babies don't want to go back to nursing once they have had a bottle.)

Congrats on the little one and Good Luck with the sleep.

my little one was born tues. she's sleeps 3 hours except from 7-9 each night she gets really fussy

Hope and pray the baby doesn't have reflux. It's terrible. Expensive medicine with no generics, have to hold the baby upright for 45 minutes after each feeding. Done it with two girls now, almost out of the second one. Exhausting.

Lay him or her in the crib and walk away before you lose your cool. I've been to that point and all survived.

Your wife is breastfeeding, so their isn't much you can do. Your main job is to elbow the wife so she wakes up, and wips a tit out to shut the kid up.

Lots of it depends on personal decisions you and your wife have made. For us she'd pump and go to bed around 9-10p I stayed up until 2-3am and feed the kid when hungry. Once I came to bed she'd get up and I'd get roughly 5hrs. That worked well for us but both of my kids started sleeping 8-10hrs around 8 weeks old.

There are good suggestions already posted in this thread, but here is another one.

Try all the suggestions or variations of the suggestions (except the ones about whiskey, bourbon and benedryl). You just have to keep trying solutions until you find the one that works for your baby at this time.

Remind your wife to sleep when the baby sleeps.

Good luck and remember that it will get better soon.

AggieAces06 said:

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Schedule, Schedule, Schedule...

If you haven't yet, read the book Baby Wise. That was the most helpful book for us. It promotes feeding scheduling. We started the method at about 3 weeks old and by 6 weeks old ours was sleeping from 9pm to 4 am. That might not seem great, but when you've been waking up every 2-3 hours, it's HUGE.

Also, if she is comfortable pumping, she can pump and have a bottle ready that you can give the baby at one of the night feeding times. Mom can get a 5-6 hour stretch of sleep, an you get a one on one feeding time. (You do have to be careful with this because some babies don't want to go back to nursing once they have had a bottle.)

Congrats on the little one and Good Luck with the sleep.

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2nd vote for Baby Wise. Didn't know about this on first kid. 1 year of erratic sleep. Scheduled feeding on kid #2. Let her cry after 6 weeks and she started sleeping through the night. Both are great kids and well-adjusted Aggies (Class of '14 & '17).

Gig 'em!

Aggiewes '87

we also used a schedule for our 2

my wife would recall the specifics, but i believe our oldest was sleeping through the night by 2mo old

Read Baby Wise and train your baby to that schedule.

Please don't use BabyWise!!!!! It has been proven over and over to not be breastfeeding friendly and terrible for maintaining supply. Babies are not evil manipulators and should not cry it out especially when young.

You can use the good idea of creating a ROUTINE when baby shows you how far apart she would like to eat (say, 2 hours) and set your schedule to that, but you should not encourage long stretches at night until later on.

Health sleep habits, happy baby is my favorite book that gives practical advice with scholarly data.

For breastfeeding, read Kellymom and Dr. JACK Neuman who has great advice on healthy night weaning

For the first few months, feed baby every three hours. You will be surprised how you will adapt to the baby. Every baby is different. I have heard great things about babywise, it didn't work for us so we dropped it. Our first baby had chronic ear infections so it to him awhile to sleep through the night. I would get upset when he would cry in the night, but changed my attitude, and loved to rock him to sleep. People would get upset, but my thought is, when am I going to ever do this again. Also with putting a baby on a sleep schedule, remember babies take awhile to develop mentally and may take awhile to fall into schedule.

Schedule schedule schedule! I thought my wife was full of it when she wanted to make sure he didn't sleep all day and had his feedings within certain time frames unless he was hungry which isn't always predictable.

However by the month and a half mark he was sleeping pretty much through the whole night. Cherish every day. They change so fast and enjoy this stage no matter how sleep deprived you are. The real work starts when they turn two. It's a blast every day.

my little one has been so fussy since last night!!

she's was doing so well until last night

Just remember 1.5-3 hours is a wide range of normal. If baby exhibits hunger signs before "whatever people tell you" FEED THE BABY. Every baby is different, and every milk supply and fat content is different. I had one baby who would lose it if she didn't eat every 1.75 hours. Next baby 2.5. Figure out what baby needs and then create your routine around that. If you space out feeding arbitrarily, the breasts will learn to make less milk.

Thank you so much guys for the tips. We actually didn't have too terrible a night. We have heard of Baby Wise but also heard to shy away from it if you want to breastfeed. Right now what worked for us was just following baby's cues on when to feed.

Some of the time baby would want to eat an hour apart and others she would not make a peep until our 3 hour max alarm went off. We might have had a breakthrough by gauging her satiety by the after eating burping session. If she was completely knocked out during feeding we realized we had at least a solid 2-2.5 hours we could sleep.

Even though we are so sleep deprived we can't get mad at her. She is absolutely beautiful and we do wanna cherish these moments, even if they hurt.

Just give that babe a ribeye once a day and then put on some music in your room so you don't hear it