Bottle at bed

huxtable

DD used to sleep for 6 hour stretch at night.  She can now only go 4-5 hours for her "long" stretch.  One of my (many) theories is that my supply is low at that last feeding and she is not entirely full.  I thought about giving her a bottle of about 2 oz., and then nurse her to sleep in hopes she gets another couple of oz or so.  Anyone else do this?  Any other suggestions? 

MrsAmers

Baby sleep isn't linear.  Sometimes it gets better and sometimes it gets worse. Babies wake up for lots of reasons, some are because they are hungry and some are just because of the ways that their brains are developing.  You unfortunately can't "fix" baby sleep with extra milk or cereal.  The only thing that improves sleep is time and maturity.

Giving her EBM in a bottle may fill her up a little more, but since breastfeeding is a supply-demand process you are just going to get her used to drinking more without letting her tell your body to make more.  Meaning that the discrepency between what she wants and what you produce could get wider.

I know that you're tired (I am too!), but there isn't an easy fix for this one.  My strategy is to bring DS to bed and nurse him lying down.  That way I can fall back to sleep and he can suck as much as he wants.

huxtable

Hmmmm...that's true.  Thanks for the advice!

Mrs.0428

Read about the "4 month wakeful" it's possible she is experiencing that which really is nothing more than her development getting in the way of her sleep.

mrs.baum

DS slept really well until about 6 months, then he just took off developmentally and started cutting teeth. It really messed with his sleep. BF is based on supply and demand, so you are most likely producing enough.