If your wife is making enough breast milk I suggest doing it in shifts.

You hit the hay early and let her breast feed the last feeding before bed.
Then you wake up and bottle feed the next feeding.
Continue alternating.

So if say baby is eating every 3 hours (noon, 3, 6, 9, midnight, 3, 6). You go to bed after the 6 feeding, wife handles the 9 pm feeding then goes to bed, you handle the midnight feeding, wife gets the 3 am, and you get the 6 am.

That's sleeping in 5 hours blocks and that's pretty manageable.

ONE-TWO-- said:

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What we've been running into the past couple of nights is that our little girl does a whole lot of cluster feedings. She'll eat for about 15-20 mins and then fall asleep. By the time we burp her and swaddle her she starts crying again, rooting around looking for some more food. It seems like she wants to eat every 45 mins to an hour, and she does that for about 3 cycles of feedings.

Should we stimulate her more to get her to do one long feeding or just feed her when she asks for it?

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Try it, but don't force it. See if you can stimulate her more and keep her awake to feed more, but nursing can be hard work for the baby. If she gets too worn out herself, it'll be harder for her to nurse well.

Regardless, I would recommend feeding on demand still at this age.

Like so many others have said, the newborn baby stuff passes before you realize it. Just give your baby what it needs and hang in there. One day you're sleep deprived and the next day you look up and they're down in their crib asleep by 10 with no chance of waking up.

blindey said:

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Like so many others have said, the newborn baby stuff passes before you realize it. Just give your baby what it needs and hang in there. One day you're sleep deprived and the next day you look up and they're down in their crib asleep by 10 with no chance of waking up.

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And then the next day they're asking you if they can sleep in your bed, and then the next day the crib is gone and they have a full size bed and wake up and go get themselves breakfast.

Time flies.. don't sweat it.