tips for decreasing time at nighttime feeding

moleson99

Our LO generally gets up around 2ish for a feeding.  Typically for feedings at night are an hour long tops (from the time he gets up till he falls back asleep).  But his 2am feeding is gradually taking longer and longer!  Saturday night (well, actually it would have been sunday morning), he was up about 1.5 hours total.  But last night was terrible.  He was up from 2:30-5:15!!!!

Anyone have any tips on how to make these shorter?  Or maybe he was just that awake??  We keep the lights off (turn on the bathroom light and close the door a little so just a little light comes in for changing purposes), don't talk, no eye contact, etc.  In other words, we keep it strictly "business". 

Maybe he's going through a growth spurt or something.....  Just looking for any advice, (if there is any!!)

 Thanks ladies!

jnk062602

There is generally a growth spurt at 3 weeks and 6 weeks, so it is probably not that.  DS takes about 1-1.5 hours to fall back asleep from when he wakes up - so he nurses about 25 minutes at night and then by the time I burp him, change him, swaddle him, and get him back to sleep I have been up 1-1.5 hours.

My DS still gets sleepy and starts to comfort suck pretty early on in the night time bfing.  But once that stops and I feel he is more efficient, I will stop having him be undressed for night time nursings.  Also, unless there is a poop or he has a diaper rash, I will stop changing his diaper and nurse him swaddled.  That dramatically cut down the nursing time at night for dd.  But the flip side is - if they are not getting a good feeding bc they fall asleep at the breast they will be back up in a short time.  So I will probably wait at least a few more weeks for ds until he is a bit more efficient.

SoonToBeMsP

Growth spurt is possible. Or she may have just been awake. DD did something similar a few days ago.

We generally do this: change diaper, feed, put back in RnP, rock her and she falls asleep quickly. That being said, she nurses for 20 minutes or less and is usually ready to go back to sleep, so it generally takes 45 minutes or so.