Comments on: Newborns Sleeping Through The Night? What About Breastfeeding?

By: Emily DeJeu

Emily DeJeu — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:20:23 +0000

In reply to Hollie. @ Hollie - agreed! It's just way too extreme a method to recommend to the general public, and it does not take into account AT ALL a mom's breast milk supply and breastfeeding goals. Thanks for commenting, Hollie!

By: Emily DeJeu

Emily DeJeu — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:18:24 +0000

In reply to cindy. @ cindy - thanks so much for sharing your opinion with us! As a mom of a grown daughter, your wisdom is so valuable, and so appreciated by our community of young moms :-) Best to you and to your family!

By: Hollie

Hollie — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 06:13:59 +0000

I also feel like a method like this is tantamount to neglect and abuse! If your newborn is sleeping through the night on their own that is one thing, but to force such a young and helpless baby to go without the feedings they need is nothing but starving your own child. I completely agree with the comment that if you cannot sacrifice some sleep for your newborn baby for at least a few months, you need to think about why you became a parent. In fact, you really shouldn’t be a parent. And if your day is so busy with your other children that you would use this sort of training on a newborn, you should not have so many children. My response may seem overly empassioned to some, but take it from someone who had to go through years of work and heartache to become a mother, having children is a privilege that too many peolple take for granted.

By: cindy

cindy — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 23:51:21 +0000

Hi,
My daughter is 26, not a bub anymore but will always be my bub.
When she was born I was strongly encouraged to get her into a routine of feeding and sleeping that suited me by the mid wives and nursing staff. Of course I complied, after all, what did I know. The facts are as follows.
My daughter did sleep through the nights at about 2 month. My breast milk did slowly dry up, but what was most distressing was that my daughter was being malnourished.
Despite my concerns and regular check ups, I was assured everything was as it should be.
I took matters into my own inexperienced hands and sought another opinion.
My little girl was in fact underweight. Matters were rectified immediately and my baby put on weight rapidly.
My point is, babies need nourishment. They grow so quickly in the first few months. In order to develop most effectively they need regular feeds.
Take what you want from this experience. I work as a private nanny and have done so for over 12 years now, and I would never recommend encouraging a little baby to sleep through the night. To me, its tantamount to neglect. But these are my thoughts only. After all…what would I know.

By: Christine Hahn

Christine Hahn — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:50:31 +0000

I am an exclusively breastfeeding mom. I believe in demand feeding and never waking a sleeping baby after 6pm for feeds. My first child slept through from 10 weeks (10 hour stretches), and never fed more often than 3 – 4 hourly during the day. My second slept through from 5 weeks (9 – 11 hours), but unfortunately started waking 3 times at night after 12 weeks. We are down to 1-2 wakings now (5 months). I do have very good milk supply and storage capacity. I also know a mother that tried to enforce a feeding schedule and distract her hungry baby for hours on end – she ended up with low milk supply and a baby that failed to thrive and never slept.

By: Emma

Emma — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:15:21 +0000

The thing that worries me most is that there will be inexperienced first time mums who will take the word of these “experts” as gospel, potentially at the expense of their childs and their own well being. That’s really sad.

By: Nicole Johnson

Nicole Johnson — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 13:46:23 +0000

In reply to Angela. @Angela Thank you for chiming in with your feelings!

By: Angela

Angela — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 03:24:43 +0000

Reading about this new method of ‘teaching’ a newborn to sleep for 8 hours makes me sad. A newborn cannot learn to put themselves back to sleep, they are simply being denied breastmilk or formula and ignored or distracted so they give up from sheer exhaustion and fall alseep. This is in my opinion neglect, and could even be considered abuse. The baby will suffer greatly physically and mentally. The role of mum and dad is to protect, nurture and love their baby, and denying them their basic right to milk neglects these rights. Following such incredibly bad advice would make bonding with your baby difficult and the whole newborn phase much more stressful than it should be. The authors of this book should be discredited by paediatricians and experts in the field to encourage parents to stay away from these quacks. Love, nurture and feed your baby and the sleep will follow when the child is developmentally ready and no longer requiring the calories and hydration as well as comfort, night time feeding brings.

By: Janetta

Janetta — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 04:02:57 +0000

Hi. It’s clear from comments here & from my own experiences & what I’ve heard from other mothers/parents, that everyone has a unique experience in some ways. But there are of course things in common, ‘universal’ baby experiences too. My experience was a baby who breast fed every 1.5 – 2 hours from early days until around 5-6 months. This was comfortable for my baby & necessary for her to thrive. At times she herself would try to take in a little more than usual in one sitting, after which she would promptly throw it all up. So clearly tummy capacity is little in the early days & you can’t ‘make’ or “encourage” your baby to eat more in one go & then not offer milk when they’re clearly crying for it 2 hours later – & it makes me really angry when people/professionals (so called), tell you this is possible or desirable for every baby! Really really gets me steamed! I know my comments may seem biased, but this has been our family’s experience & we have a beautiful thriving happy baby who is 17 months old now. At one point I just stopped listening to all those who insisted she shouldn’t need to eat this often & therefore sleep ‘better’. Well this just wasn’t our experience & not what our daughter needed. I think it borders on the cruel & neglectful to allow a young baby to cry for food & withhold it. I found going with what seemed natural for our baby & tempering this with broader family needs to be the best way. Yes there were sleepless nights, but this to me is all part of the awesome privelege of raising a little human being. I found the baby sleep site invaluable for setting up sleep plans for our daughter, making adjustments as she grew & developed & breast feeding as long as she wanted to (in our case that was 6.5 months, then I express fed to 8 months & then gradually switched to formula). I just want to encourage other mothers & parents out there – you are doing a wonderful & important job; baby’s needs & schedules change all the time, you can get good help with sleep training/coaching/sleep planning), but don’t feel pressured to resort to extreme measures that just don’t seem right for your baby or family. Let go of guilt, stress about you “should do it this way” & shut out whatever seems like crazy talk to you. The Baby Sleep Site is fantastic for giving sound professional, unbiased & compassionate advice, to help your baby & you get more & better rest as he/she grows. Just reading & taking advantage of free resources is an option too – I did that a lot. Thank you Baby Sleep Site, you guys do an awesome job & parents the world over thank you!

By: Nicole Johnson

Nicole Johnson — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 23:50:57 +0000

In reply to vks.

@Vks Thank you for chiming in with your thoughts! So true about your baby teaching you to “go with the flow.” I feel like my boys did the same as some things are simply out of our control. Thank you for your twenty-five cents! 😉

@Krista Thank you for your comment and support!

@Lizzie Considering I’ve heard some stories about Babywise and “Failure to Thrive” I am confident there would be some with this method as well. 🙁 It simply won’t work for all babies. Maybe some and maybe even “most” (however many that means), but it’s the other babies and moms who will have a very hard time. Thank you for your comment!

@Jan So true!! Following our instincts and having confidence that we know our babies best is so hard for mom these days. Thank you for chiming in!

@Jennifer I couldn’t agree with you more! 🙂 I was able to pump 6 oz from one breast and 4 oz from the other every morning. My supply was much lower in the evening. Since I am/was a working mom, my eldest son took bottles and NEVER EVER took more than 4 oz in one bottle. He just doesn’t like to overfill himself and he is still this way at almost 9 years old. He still eats frequently, just not at night, thankfully. LOL My second son was different. He took 5 to 5 1/2 oz in a bottle. They both still needed to eat at night until they were older babies, but both were down to just one feeding by 7 months, even with different eating habits. They both, however, struggled with going 11-12 hours without eating until they were almost a year. And, my second was actually a pretty “good” sleeper! I know some adults who can’t go 11-12 hours, so there ya go. 😉 Thank you for commenting!

@Mirella Thank you for sharing your experience with the 6-hour stretches, too! That is very interesting she ate every hour during the day and “tanked up” and went longer stretches at night. That is our approach, usually, too, is to get the most milk in at night as you can, respecting their tummy size and how frequently they need to eat and they won’t need it at night. Different approaches work with different babies, though. There are some who eat every hour during the day and it can cause more problems at night. Truly, all babies are different! You are so right that all of our journeys are different.

@Nash True that some babies could get dehydrated, but I do know some who will naturally be okay. I think it just depends on the baby. I wholeheartedly agree there is so much pressure for new mums to be super mums (or moms)! It’s so hard being a parent. Thank you for chiming in!

@Rachel I’m sorry you felt I was being bossy and dramatic! 😀 I work with parents every day and while I agree that it’s fine to experiment, it is not true that you can always “catch” low milk supply before the damage is done. Unfortunately, sometimes milk supply plummets over a period of several weeks and it’s very difficult, if not impossible, for some moms to get it back. We work with a lot of moms who experience this, if they night wean too soon/early. For some of us, me included, we can night wean and not have problems during the daytime, but for some moms it is simply not that way and they can never get their milk supply back up. That is the main reason I mentioned that breastfeeding moms who do not have babies who naturally sleep long stretches, it can negatively impact their milk supply if they try this method and so it’s best not to try it at all. Thank you for your comment!

@Jan I could have phrased it better. If your baby is naturally doing long stretches, you likely have large capacity and your baby can consume large quantities. Enjoy it!! (Unless your pediatrician is concerned about growth, of course). You are correct about that and I didn’t mean to make others feel guilty for having good sleepers. I wish we all did! 🙂 Thank you for chiming in again! 🙂