Cluster Feeding

Mrs.Salt&Pepper · February 2014

Anyone's LO doing cluster feeding yet? My DD1 never did this, so it is new to me. DD2 has been enjoying staying on the boob every night from about 7:30-10. It's not a big deal I guess, but I wonder how long this will last? With DD1 I was a schedule nazi, and I am trying to be more relaxed with this child. I dont know if I should start the bedtime routine by now, or just let her feed for three hours every night? She will be 3 weeks on Thursday. Anyone else have experience with this? How did you go about it?

bananas1112 · February 2014

DD started cluster feeding her first night in the hospital. I was just feeding her on demand but she tends to start around midnight and will be crying for more every hour to half hour and it's exhausting and frustrating at night. most nights aren't as bad - she will just be noticeably more hungry late at night. I try to get ahead of her during the day with pumping and if she nurses for more than 2 or 3 times in 3 hours, I can top her off with the bottle so we can both sleep (I pump one more time once she falls asleep unless I'm sore). The only good thing is she will sleep 4 or 5 hours instead of 2 or 3 after a cluster feed. I was reading they are more likely to occur at growth spurts too but I just plan to be ready for her every night so I don't have a meltdown at 3 am.

bensmommy518 · February 2014

with DS I did not try to do a schedule until after week 6. until then it seemed every day or two things changed so much anyway that it was easier for me to just go with his flow than try to make him go with mine. I went back to work at 8weeks so I focused my last two weeks of leave on getting him close to the schedule for daycare. It worked well for us and I plan to do the same for DD. Afer I went back to work we still had cluster feeding at night a lot of times. I think it was mostly comfort nursing after being apart all day.

peanutmuse · February 2014

My son was born on the same day. The moment I was able to EBF when he was 8 days old, he started cluster feeding. He does two rounds -- one from about 8am-noon and one from about 5-9pm.

MindyBadger1 · February 2014

Jack would cluster feed from 8pm - 11pm every night between 3-5 weeks. I feel bad now because I had no idea that's what he was doing because it was DH's "time" with the baby and I'd be sleeping. He'd tell me how terrible the time was and how fussy the baby was.... duh, he wanted to get his eat on! Once we figured it out it was over.

Live and learn.

Mrs.Salt&Pepper · February 2014

It's nice to hear other's experiences with this. For now, I don't plan on introducing a schedule and I am going to continue to cluster feed, as I know it will soon be another new phase and this will be gone. And, as PP said, they usually sleep longer after the cluster so that's nice. Thanks for sharing ladies.

km_md · February 2014

DD has done some cluster feeding. She seems to do it most between 7-10pm, which seems to fill her up good before bed time. It is tough to have them latched on for so long, but it does seem to help her get a longer sleep before she wakes up to feed again.

Unknown · February 2014

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mrsjenni · February 2014

DD is clusterfeeding right now. She's been nursing non-stop since 9pm. It's effing 12:30am and she's still going strong. Nursing 20 mins and going from one side to the next with no breaks. Oh and also? She just peed all over me/the bed and we have no clean bedsheets. I have to sleep on a fucking towel tonight. Shoot me.

cnctf · February 2014

mrsjenni said:
DD is clusterfeeding right now. She's been nursing non-stop since 9pm. It's effing 12:30am and she's still going strong. Nursing 20 mins and going from one side to the next with no breaks. Oh and also? She just peed all over me/the bed and we have no clean bedsheets. I have to sleep on a fucking towel tonight. Shoot me.

Hope you get some rest soon! And sorry that you have to sleep on a towel.

mrsjenni · February 2014

cnctf said:

mrsjenni said:
DD is clusterfeeding right now. She's been nursing non-stop since 9pm. It's effing 12:30am and she's still going strong. Nursing 20 mins and going from one side to the next with no breaks. Oh and also? She just peed all over me/the bed and we have no clean bedsheets. I have to sleep on a fucking towel tonight. Shoot me.
Hope you get some rest soon! And sorry that you have to sleep on a towel.

LOL! Thanks @cnctf! Can you tell I'm just having a rough night?

PS- Baby girl ended up clusterfeeding until 1:30am and here we are 2 hours later nursing again. Yay!

chicki1012 · February 2014

Yup cluster feeding here too. LO has done it since since day 2 in the hospital. Today he's a little over 3 weeks and he doesn't cluster every night but most, but yeah it's from 8pm until midnight or so. I've read too that your milk supply is lower at night and babies tend to cluster feed at night cause their sticking up before a good nights sleep.

cnctf · February 2014

@mrsjenni I believe DD is cluster feeding too. We had such a great night last night and I woke up today thinking, wow that wasn't so hard..I spoke too soon! Hope we both get some rest soon.

Roses87 · February 2014

Mine clusters in the evenings. Totally normal. They are too young to learn a routine quite yet.

ach298 · February 2014

Mine finally stopped cluster feeding from 2-5 am and now does it starting around 8pm-12am. Only thing I've done schedule wise is try to get him on a day/night schedule so that I'm not up feeding him all night only to be up with my toddler all day. That's as much schedule as I plan to do. I think that because our life revolves around DS1 schedule, DS2 will start to naturally fall in to some semblance of order.

cowscrub · February 2014

Cluster feeding sucks! DD cluster feeds from about 3-4am - 6-7 am.. And right about 6 on when dinner should be done and on the table for the rest of the family.

RedSoxGirl10 · February 2014

My 3 wek old also loves the cluster feed. He mostly does it from 1am to 7am but sometimes whenever he feels like it. It is incredibly exhausting! I do hope he is on a slightly better schedule soon especially bc dh goes back to work on Monday.

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