Readers, you probably know by now that we’re a little (or maybe a lot) passionate about sleep training at the Baby Sleep Site™. But here’s something we’re equally passionate about: helping breastfeeding moms sleep train in a way that won’t jeopardize their commitment to breastfeeding.
Nicole’s written before about the relationship between baby sleep and breastfeeding. Today, though, we’re bringing you a fresh perspective. It comes from Miriam, who is highly qualified to speak on this subject since she’s an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant with experience as a labor and delivery nurse.
Today, Miriam will be answering a few common questions that many breastfeeding moms have about sleep training.
Will sleep training affect my milk supply?
Miriam: It can, but it definitely doesn’t have to. And The Baby Sleep Site will work to make sure that it doesn’t. Sleep training with The Baby Sleep Site™ is very personalized. They take into account you and your baby’s unique needs and develop a plan that will help you protect your breastfeeding relationship while achieving better sleep for you and your baby.
What is “sleeping through the night”, and how does it work with breastfeeding?
Miriam: Newborns (1-4 months) are sleeping through the night when they sleep five hours at a time. Most breastfeeding mothers can go one five hour stretch per 24 hours without breastfeeding and experience no ill effect on milk supply. Newborns should NOT be left to cry it out in order to achieve this five hour stretch, however. There are other techniques that can promote this five hour stretch in the middle of the night. Essential Keys To Your Newborn’s Sleep outlines newborn-friendly sleep coaching strategies for your newborn, including sample sleep-inducing routines. You may also want to consider a special newborn-focused Personalized Sleep Plan™ that is crafted to guide your baby to better sleep in a gentle, safe way.
Babies (5-9 months) sleep through the night when they achieve 6-8 hours of continuous nighttime sleep. Many breastfeeding mothers can go one 6-8 hour stretch per 24 hours (at 5-9 months) between breastfeedings without causing a drop in milk supply. A few mothers can go even longer.
Can I really go 6-8 hours straight without nursing? How can I know for sure that this won’t ruin my milk supply?
Miriam: You first have to determine the size of the milk storage inside your breasts. Some breasts look big on the outside but have small storage capacities on the inside. Others look small but can store a lot of milk, so it’s all about the amount of storage capacity inside the breast.
Think of your breasts like two measuring cups. Each woman has a different sized set of measuring cups. In fact, some women find that each breast is a different size! Most women find when they pump that one breast will supply more milk than the other. For instance, one breast may provide 3 ounces and the other breast may provide 4 ounces. You can pump* your breasts when they feel full to find out how much milk your breasts can store at one time. Usually, you will get the most milk just before the first nursing of the day.
If pumping isn’t the best solution for you, you can have your baby weighed before and after a feeding by a nurse or lactation consultant. Many hospitals, lactation consultants, and clinics will do this for free. Babies take different amounts of milk at different feedings; so for an estimate of how much your breasts store at one time, weigh the baby before and after they’ve had one of their larger meals. Of course, your breasts are more like a river than a lake, in that the milk is constantly being made, but some breasts do store more at one time than others, and this will affect how often your baby needs to nurse.
If you are able to store 6 or more ounces in your “measuring cups,” then you can probably go 6-8 hours without affecting your milk supply. Most babies who are exclusively breastfeeding drink 25-35 ounces of milk per day. Moms who routinely store 6 or more ounces of milk in their breasts at one time may be able to feed their babies 5-6 times per day (although this also depends on the appetite of the baby.)
Remember too that some babies have reflux or small stomach capacities and cannot tolerate large amounts of milk. These babies will need to eat more often even if the moms can store a great deal of milk at one time.
* Note: If you want to pump in order to find out approximately how much milk your breasts hold, be sure to use a good, hospital-grade pump, like this one. Also, remember that no pump is going to be as effective at emptying your breasts as your baby, so leave a “margin for error”. The amount you’re able to pump out with a high-quality pump will be at least slightly less than your baby can draw out of your breasts. Finally, don’t be overly concerned if you’re not able to pump out much milk. This exercise isn’t meant to frighten or frustrate you!
Help, Miriam — my “measuring cups” are small! What does that mean for my baby’s sleep?
Miriam: Moms who store less than 6 ounces at a time (those who have smaller “measuring cups”) can still make plenty of milk, because overall milk production is not dependent on the size of the “measuring cups.” Your body can make plenty of milk as long as there is a place for the milk to go. Moms with smaller cups need to feed their babies more frequently to keep room in the storage space for more milk. So a mom who has a storage space of 3 ounces can still exclusively breastfeed; however, she will need to feed her baby 9-12 times per day for the entire time of exclusive breastfeeding. This is much different than a mom who can store 8 ounces and may need to feed her baby just 5 times per day. What’s important is for your baby to get the number of ounces he needs to thrive. It doesn’t matter so much if he gets that amount in 5 feedings or 10 feedings.
I only store 3 ounces of milk at a time. This means that while I am breastfeeding my son, I need to continue offering night feedings. This helps him to be able to grow well. My sister, however, can store 11 ounces of milk at a time! She only needs to nurse 5-6 times per day to maintain a supply. I’m so glad I’m the older sister and had my baby first, because my expectations would have been way off, if I had expected to only need to nurse 5-6 times per day. Our different storage capacities mean that we have different daytime and nighttime feeding and sleep routines. The great thing is that we can both have healthy, breastfed babies.
So if my “measuring cups” are small, does that mean I’m going to spend the next year being chronically exhausted?!
Miriam: Not at all! Each of us is different. Our babies are unique individuals as well. It seems a little silly to expect all mother-baby pairs to need the same schedules and routines! The good news is that all moms can get better sleep with a little help.
Even a mom like me who only stores 3 ounces at a time can still get better sleep at night. Here is a sample feeding and sleep schedule for a mom with a small storage capacity of 3 ounces and a baby over 2 months:
Wake up time 8:00am /feeding
Feeding 10:00am/nap
Feeding 1:00pm /nap
Feeding 2:00pm
Feeding 4:00pm/nap
Feeding 6:00pm
Feeding 8:00pm
Feeding 10:00pm
Feeding 3:00amNote that newborns may need one (or even two) extra feedings between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. After 7-9 months, the amount of feedings may drop to 7-8 if baby does well on solid food, and it is cleared with the baby’s doctor, because the baby will be replacing some breast milk calories with calories from solid foods.
Remember, if you have concerns about your baby’s growth or the number of feedings he needs, contact his doctor or a lactation consultant who can evaluate your baby in person. Keep in mind, too, that a baby’s weight gain is the BEST indicator of adequate growth.
So there it is: breastfeeding and sleep training really CAN go together. You don’t have to forsake sleep in order to breastfeed well, but you also don’t have to forsake breastfeeding in order to get some sleep! You can breastfeed and teach your baby to sleep through the night. You can breastfeed and help your baby learn to nap soundly.
That’s right, readers — when it comes to breastfeeding and sleep, you can “have your cake and eat it, too”! 🙂
Polling all nursing moms: have you found a way to make sleep training and breastfeeding work together? Scroll down to share your wisdom with us, and to hear from other moms!
Additional Resources on Breastfeeding and Sleep:
Breast Milk Storage Capacity: What It Means and How To Measure It
Emily DeJeu says
@ krystle — pat on the back to you, mama, for seeking some medical help! I, too, am so glad you didn’t try to wait it out — would’ve likely been miserable for you both.
Keep us posted on how the Zantac helps her, Krystle! I hope this is the beginning of better sleep for you both…
krystle says
well went to the doc today. baby girl has silent reflux so we are starting her on zantac so i hope this helps. there is a huge difference in her cry at night now, than when we started her sleep training a month ago. she tries so hard o go back to sleep… sucks the heck out of her thumb crying the whole time. im glad i went and didn’t put her thru it any longer. it has only been bad for a couple nights i think it has progressed over the last month since she has been sleeping on her back at night.
Emily DeJeu says
@ Jen — thanks so, so much for sharing the details of your experience with sleep training! Feedback like this is so, so helpful to our community of parents. I’m so glad to hear that CIO was so successful for you, and that you’ve managed to get your little guy sleeping so well. Congrats! 🙂
Emily DeJeu says
@ Brenda — are you wanting to shift his nursing so that more happens during the day? Or is the nighttime nursing fine for you?
@ Melissa — so glad you found the article helpful and encouraging! I thought Miriam made an excellent point when she said that it’s a little bit silly to expect all mother-baby pairs to stick to the same schedule.
@ Zainab — I’m so sorry to hear you’re struggling 🙁 You must be exhausted! First, rest assured that after 12 months, children don’t need night feedings. So your daughter doesn’t need to nurse 5-6 times during the night.
As for how to fix it — why don’t you check out our free guides for tips on getting started? Since your daughter is 12 months, she’s kind of straddling the line between babyhood and toddlerhood; therefore, I’d recommend you check out both our baby guide and our toddler guide. You can access the baby guide here: https://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-sleep-through-night-free-ebook/ and you can access the toddler guide here: https://www.babysleepsite.com/toddler-sleep-training-secrets-free-ebook/
Of course, if you’d like helping in solving this issue, you could browse our consultation packages: https://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-toddler-sleep-consulting-services/
Hope these resources help you get started, Zainab! Thanks for commenting. And keep us posted on what happens!
Jen says
When my baby was was 4 1/2 months, he started waking every hour every night. It was painful, and he continued to do it no matter what we tried (trying to nurse for less time, husband soothing him, earlier/later bedtime, not nursing before bed, etc). When he turned 6 months, we sleep trained him using Cry It Out. This was also painful, and went on for many weeks, not at all like the stories I read about “We let our baby cry for 45 minutes one night, and he was instantly night weaned!”. We started by “training” him to only eat a few times a night, with my husband weaning him off the earliest feeding using a bottle and reducing the amount of milk every few days. If he woke only an hour or two after the last feeding, we let him cry, sometimes for 20-30 minutes, which was VERY hard, but I always felt better in the morning because he never seemed worse for wear, and it didn’t affect his mood during the day at all. I can now happily report that my wonderful, happy, bubbly 7 1/2 month old is practically completely night weaned, and sleeps nearly every night from 8pm-5am, when I give him a quick nurse and he sleeps another 1-2 hours. Not matter what you might think about CIO, I can tell you, It Works. And if you have a baby and are thinking about trying CIO, don’t wait too long. I have read that around 8-10 months, it becomes much harder, which is why we started at 6 months.
Zainab says
Hi friends,
I am a mother of a 1yr old girl… and my problem is quite similar to Louis.. 🙁 My daughter is on breast feed. Its good not to have hassle of bottles or feeders, but my problem is that she need comfort nursing throughout the night for 5-6 times.. she gets up for 3-5 min and then get back to sleep… its horrible.. at times she wakes up every half an hour…she does that since she was only one month 🙁 plz suggest me something…
Melissa says
Oh my gosh, four babies and a stack of books read and I’m just now realizing I have small measuring cups! This explains sooo much about my children’s habits, from why they never went three hours between feeds early on (more like 1-2 hours) and why mine just don’t sleep through the night like so many others’ babies. It takes until well after the first birthday. It is extremely comforting to know it really isn’t that we are just constantly handling night time wrong, it’s that they need more feeds for longer than others. My 8 month old and I will just let things happen as they will. Thank you for this!
Brenda says
My 9 month old seems to only nurse at night time. Rarely he will nurse once late in the afternoon. He then nurses about 4 times from evening to morning.
Emily DeJeu says
@ aneeza — I wouldn’t say you’re depriving him, provided he’s nursing plenty during the day, and especially since you’ve recently added in a bottle of formula. Some 10 month olds need one night feeding, but others don’t. Has he been waking at this time ever since you cut the night feedings at 7 months? Or is this a new problem?
Emily DeJeu says
@ Rolene — it’s never too late! I’d say you’re in a good sleep training window here — your baby’s still a baby and not yet a toddler, which means things will (probably) go a little more smoothly (sleep training toddlers can be rough!)
It does sound, though, like your daughter has some pretty strong nursing associations, and those, like any sleep association, aren’t exactly easy to break right away. It can be done, but it takes some time and some patience.
If you want to tackle sleep training on your own, you could start with our free sleep through the night guide: https://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-sleep-through-night-free-ebook/ If you decide you want help with sleep training, though, you could check out our available consultation packages: https://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-toddler-sleep-consulting-services/
Thanks for reaching out, Rolene, and for commenting! Hope we’re able to help you through your daughter’s sleep training. 🙂