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I'm new & have a question

Jennifer - posted on 11/24/2008 ( 3 moms have responded )

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First... hi.

Second, how do I get her to nurse longer, but less often. She's gaining properly and has plenty of wet/dirty diapers.

I'd just like her to go longer than 1.5-2 hours between feedings and maybe nurse longer at each feeding so she wouldn't need to come back to often.

Right now she's nursing at least 8 minutes on one side, burping and going to the other side for a few minutes. We just started getting to that. It used to be up to 10 minutes on one side only.

She cluster feeds between 6-11pm and then goes down for the night (8hours) at 11ish. Wakes up at 7am, nurses and goes right back to sleep or 2 hours.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

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3 Comments

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Mary - posted on 11/24/2008

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Hi Jennifer,

It sounds like you are very lucky and your baby is doing awsome! I would bet that the reason she eats so often during the day is to make up for all that lovely sleep time at night. Her tummy is only so big, and as she grows she will go longer and longer between feedings, but for now, she can only take in enough to fill her tummy, and to get enough for her little growing body, she needs to cram all those nursings in during the day. She'll nurse less and less often by the week, you'll notice it as she grows.

Tanya - posted on 11/24/2008

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We used the advice from the book "The Baby Whisperer" which suggests to do things in the following order (during the day): Eat, Awake, Sleep. Basically the idea is to feed babe as soon as she wakes from a nap (Eat), then let her have some awake/play time (Awake), and then put her down again (Sleep). Apparently this help their bodies regulate themselves and helps to stretch out times between feeds. Sometimes when our babes are fussing we assume it's because they want to nurse again, when in reality they just need some sleep!

We did this from the beginning and almost right away my daughter put herself on a 3 hr schedule. She would nurse for about 8 minutes total at each feed, be awake for approx 45 min-1 hr and then sleep for 2 hours. She stuck to this schedule until she was about 4 months old. She slept at least 8 hrs straight every night from 7 weeks onward.

Depending on how old your daughter is, you probably don't want her to go any longer than 3 hrs between feeds during the day (maybe you know this already). So... using this method, it was sometimes necessary to wake my babe up from her daytime naps if it was getting close to the 3 hr mark.

I have no idea if this will be even remotely helpful. Reading back over it, I'm not even sure I have addressed your question! Feel free to reply and ask for clarification if you need it :)

Brandy - posted on 11/24/2008

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Hi...I'm Brandy and my baby is 10 weeks old. He feeds for 15 minutes on each breast and eats every 3 hours. He eats a total of 7 feedings per day and goes down for 8 hours at night, then nurses in the morning and right back to bed like your little one. You may have to listen to her cry at first, but she'll pull down the milk that she needs for 3 hour feedings.

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