
Originally Posted by
@llli*lllmeg
Hi Sara
when I dealt with sleep deprivation in the early months what helped me the most was when my husband would take baby and play with, change, and/or comfort baby part of the night (or during the day if he was home) while I slept. In my experience it was amazing what putting together a 4 hour stretch at night or a 1-2 hour nap during the day would do for feeling more rested. It would not have to be every day or night either. Typically there is no reason to give a baby a bottle for the occasional longer stretch so mommy can sleep. Just nurse baby before and after.
As far as how long this will go on, I have no firm answer for you there. Every baby is different. But typically it DOES get better as far as nursing frequency reducing, usually by 3 months of age if not earlier. But you can expect baby will still wake to nurse at night for many more months. Just not ALL night.
If you do want to try a bottle, I suggest be mindful of what to do to avoid pitfalls. Breastfeeding gets undermined by pumping and bottles for various reasons and if you are mindful of what can happen you can avoid many of the issues. Personally I don’t think "rest' bottles are really as helpful as touted by many but ymmv.
1) Don't be concerned if you are not able to pump very much. Normal/average pump output for a mom who is nursing full time is .5-2 ounces per pump session. Pump output is not a reliable indicator of milk production.
2) Don't let baby be overfed. You will want baby somewhat hungry and eager to nurse when you wake up. So keep bottles small and have your husband use paced bottle feeding techniques (Sometimes helpful for avoiding nipple and flow confusion and bottle preference as well) and a slow flow nipple. Don't let your confidence be undermined by someone saying something like 'baby was really hungry and they guzzled the bottle.' Most likely, if a baby 'guzzles' a bottle, baby was fed the bottle improperly.
3) Keep bottles for 'emergency use' only. Turning bottles into a daily routine can be problematic and lead to more, less necessary bottles. Watch out for the ‘snowball effect’ of pumping and bottles leading to more pumping and bottles.
4) If your milk production is at all in question, or if you get full while napping, you will want to pump for each time and around each time a supplemental bottle is given. This means, if you pump milk on Monday night for baby to be given on Tuesday afternoon, you may also need to pump sometime Tuesday afternoon, if that makes sense. This is one reason why mom getting 'rest' bottles sometimes results in little gain of rest.
5) Babies do not "prefer' bottles. If you are finding baby is having a hard time nursing after being bottle fed (and this issue can take time to develop) just stop the bottles.
6) Don’t be concerned about not having milk if you have just pumped. Even if you have just pumped, you can always nurse your baby.
You might also consider baby being cup fed rather than bottle fed.
Have you worked on weaning off the shields? Any progress there? Or tried side lying nursing with the shields? It can be done in some cases.