feeding & sleeping routines

Ella seems to have got into the habit of stretching her first feed for the day out into a 3 - 5 hour event.  She does the same with her afternoon/evening feed (they all blur into one when they go on for that long!!).  Today I managed to settle her for a sleep part-way through a feed that began at 9am (and only just ended 15 mins ago!), put her in her bed, and she lay there happily for an hour and a half before crying for another feed, so that doesn't count as 9am - 2.30 feed, but the thing is, she didn't sleep for that time, just lay there happily.  I just checked on her now, 15 mins after putting her down, and she's doing it again!  Crikey I don't think there's any milk left in these boobies, my back is blimmin sore, and I'm couch-ridden for most of the day and all evening, and eat all my meals one-handed.  She'll be due to start up her afternoon/evening sesh soon enough, and hasn't even slept after her big morning of being constantly awake.  She wakes twice, sometimes once through the night, feeds for an hour, and settles to sleep beautifully then, so I'm not too worried about her, just frustrated as my whole day and evening seems to be nothing but feeding, feeding, feeding.  Blimmin hard to get out of the house when you've always got a baby attached to your boob! 

What are the routines your little ones have or had in the first few weeks?  I'm curious to know if ours is freakish or not.  And anyone got ideas on how to get into a better one?  I feed her from one side and don't offer the other until 3 hours later.  But she's still wide awake and hungry for it by then anyway!  She pulls off the breast as if ending a feed, then after I burp her, she's keen as to get back on there.  She sometimes dozes off while feeding, but wakes after I put her in bed and grizzles, leading into a 'hungry' cry.  I've tried letting her cry it out - hasn't worked, she's seemed hungry. 

Andie I would suggest going to the family centre (Plunket) on Albert St and seeing if you can get some help there (some nurses there are nice so maybe ring them to get in and see them so you have time with them). I had marathons like that (mostly at night) and my MW worked out that Andrew wasn't getting enough from me and needed more (this started at 3 weeks old) - I started expressing when he was sleeping to try and build it up but it didn't happen so we had to comp him on formula, most times to begin with all he needed was an extra 30 mls to get him to sleep after each feed from me. As he got older he needed more formula as I just wasn't making enough milk for him.

Just a thought, because it happened to a friend of mine, she's not crying because she is too full is she? My friend would feed, and bubs would come off crying so she thought she was hungry and so topped her up and she kept crying and my friend just kept topping her up. Turned out after a visit to Plunket or lactation consultant that she was crying coz her poor wee tum was too full. It's extremely hard to tell the difference between the cries when they're that young so perhaps there's another reason why she's crying? Overtiredness??

Controlled crying sounds like a good thing to try. I used to check on Ashlee when she was younger and she'd be wide awake and staring around the room for an hour if not more. Then come 4-5pm she was absolutely beside herself with tiredness because I'd pick her up when she started grizzling during the day, but that grizzle was because she was still tired coz she hadn't slept!

I go tHannah into a routine from the first week, cos I am sooo not a demand feed person - must be a control freak! Anyway, for the first few weeks this is what we did amd it worked great:

up at 7am (feed, kick, play) back to bed at 8.30, up from 10 - 11.30, up from 2 - 3.30, up at 5 (feed, play, bath, feed) in bed by 7pm, then a top up feed at 10.30/11. Then hopefully you are only up once in the night.

For feeds it was all of one side, burp, nappy change, then offer the second side. Next feed start on the side she finished on first, then offer the other side.... YKWIM?

She always went to bed awake (with a dummy) as well, cos she always got fed as soon as she woke up not just before bed. When we put her to bed we would leave her to cry for 10 minutes, if still going I would go in pat her or something but no talking or picking up. Usually she would be asleep just before I was about to go in! We initially started with 5 mins, then as we got more used to the crying waited 10. But you can set how long you wait for. She started sleeping 12 hours at 10 weeks and I am certain its because of her routine and that she was getting enough milk during the day to not need any at night, plus she was having too much sleep during the day.

Not sure how I managed to get her into the routine, but she just naturally went into it from the first day of trying - I woke her at 7am, fed etc then put her down awake at 8.30 and it just seemed natural for her. Oh and I would wake her when she was due a feed too.

oops novel, good luck.

Edited by aimeejoy

andie at that age i wouldnt leave bub to cry esp if you havent sorted out a routine yet. if she is going to sleep part way thru her feed then she isnt hungry. parent centre sounds like a good idea. i used to feed gabriel when he cried cause i thought he was hungry and it turned out to be wind cause feeding will make them feel better temporarily. so he would cry and i would feed him when all he really wanted was a good burp.

I used to do that, I'd feed her on one side until she'd had enough of it and pulled away and wouldn't accept more, burp and change her, then offer the other side - but Ella's poos turned green because she wasn't getting enough hind milk, and as soon as I started putting her back on the same side (checking first that there was still a drop left in it), they went yellow again. 

However, last night Ella had a normal-length feed for her evening one, then went to sleep... for 6 1/2 hours!!!  One night feed, then she was up for an hour for brekkie and is sleeping again now - not this  seems more like it... hope it's a sign of things to come (and not just because we had fish'n'chips for dinner - I heard the fat in them settles babies to sleep!).  I'll still talk to my midwife, and will check out what Plunket & Parent Centre have to offer if things haven't really settled.  Thanks for the advice, ladies

Green? Ewwwwwww..... haha

With the controlled crying I basically pick them up when they start crying to make sure they don't have wind etc. then put them down, leave them for 10 minutes, go in and pick them up and check for wind etc. again then put them down again. Mercedes is usually asleep within 3-4 minutes of crying, Sienna doesn't very often cry but when she does she takes longer to settle.

The good thing is tho that they both go down in the cot awake and don't need to be rocked/patted/fed to sleep which worked really well with Maya.

Family Centre are great if you get a chance to go there. We're going on Tues next week to try and get the girls back on the breast and you spend the day there so they can observe your feeding/routine etc. I went with Maya when she was 2 weeks, and at that stage I was rocking her to sleep, and it was the Plunket nurse at Family Centre that encouraged me to put her down awake and I was amazed that she actually went to sleep on her own.