Breastfeeding and Sleep
The two most common topics you’ll hear about when you have your baby is: feeding and sleeping. The amount of “advice” out there can sometimes be conflicting and overwhelming. I get it! I have been there before, and even with my 4th child the guilt and confusion was there. Heck, we’re all parents. But it can be overwhelming to navigate. I often hear parents ask me about breastfeeding AND sleep; ‘Will my baby sleep well or through the night if he is breastfed”? Many are told to switch to formula to get their newborn sleeping. This can often leave Moms feeling sad and confused on what she should do with her breastfeeding journey.
With breastfeeding, it is important to make sure that the latch is established in those first few days, and any concerns are addressed with your lactation consultant. Feeds are done frequently throughout the day as well as night. A newborn’s feeding schedule changes a lot those first few months, as they are going through growth spurts. For night feeds, there are some pediatricians who suggest waking your newborn to feed every 4 hours, while others suggest waiting for your baby to wake up to feed. Often, your newborn will fall asleep while feeding, making it easier to put him down. The feeding to sleep association at first is easy and helpful. However, as he gest older and moves out of his newborn stage, this is definitely a habit you want to remove.
Around 3 months your baby will hit another growth spurt, and around 4 months, the 4-month regression. At that point, your child is leaving the newborn stage and entering the infant stage. He is becoming more alert and aware, and nursing to sleep may not be as effective. This is often when I hear from desperate, tired parents who want their baby sleeping longer stretches. And this can happen!! You do not need to stop breastfeeding in order to get your baby sleeping through the night. What you need to work on is, changing the habit or behavior or your baby needing to be fed to sleep. If your little one is latched to the breast and falling asleep, when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he will need to latch back on. And this is what we work on. Stopping the feed to sleep association. Changing the habit.
A few things to note with this:
1. First and foremost, as I mentioned before, you can continue breastfeeding and have your child sleep through the night. You do not need to stop nursing, and swap over to formula, if you don’t want to.
2. You want to make sure that at this point your baby is nursing enough in a 24-hour period. That he is gaining weight and thriving. Most babies at 4-5 months are still nursing 4-5x a day, and about 1-2x a night. Any issues should be discussed with your pediatrician.
3. Night weaning is usually part of the sleep training process, but not always a must. Depending on the age of your child, we work on slowly reducing and removing feeds. However, some babies are sometimes not ready to remove all feeds, and that’s OK. With my youngest one, she was underweight, and while I worked on changing her sleep habits (sleep training), I still managed to keep 2 breastfeeding sessions at night.
4. Ensure that your child is not falling asleep at the breast before bedtime. This is the main thing with seeing sleep training success. Your baby should be nursing for a feed, but not to sleep. Make sure you are feeding him as part of the routine, but not at the last minute when he should be in the crib. Move the feed a bit earlier in the bedtime routine process. Sometimes keeping the lights on, or nursing in another room, can also be helpful.
5. In the middle of the night, while sleep training especially, it is suggested to have the non-nursing parent to respond. If you are working on reducing feeds and/or teaching your child how to put himself back to sleep without feeding to sleep, it may be easier for him if the other parent responds as he won’t expect to be nursed. While in the beginning it may be hard for your baby, he will learn and get used to going back to sleep without a feed.
6. While night weaning feeds, you want to make sure you do it slowly and in according to what’s best for you and your baby. When working with my Clients, I look at each child individually and offer case by case recommendations. One thing I do always recommend is pumping before you go to sleep. This helps fully drain out anything remaining so that your breasts don’t engorge at night. It also allows the continue supply of milk so that even though you have removed middle of the night feeds, you are still producing enough. And lastly, of course, you can store some extra milk if needed ;).
If you are a breastfeeding parent, like I was, and still have concerns about your child’s sleep and your breastfeeding journey, let’s talk!