Tips for night feeds
Once you become a mum or dad, your nights will certainly change, or at least for a while.
In the first months of becoming a parent it is completely normal to have your little one wake several times a night but there are some tips to make your experience more manageable for both you and your little one.
Alot of babies can feed during the night and then go back to sleep but there are also babies that can wake to feed and then stay up for hours at night.
The way you as parents approach night wakes and feeds can have an effect if your little one remains in the zone to go back to sleep.
Our Dreamy Days sleep tips and recommendations are:
- Listen first: Newborns can be very noisy at night. Making all different sounds, grunting, snorting etc while they sleep. When you hear them, wait and listen first before you jump out of bed to attend to them, to ensure they are actually awake and you are not going to wake them.
- Lights off: When attending to your little one at night. Make sure to keep the lights off with a very dim night light on. Exposure to light during the night will signal to your little one's body clock that it is day time and time to be awake. Be sure not to watch TV while doing night feeds.
- White Noise: Keep the white noise on while doing night feeds and at the same volume. This continuation of their "sleep noise" will continue to keep them in the zone for sleep.
- Diaper: Only change your little ones diaper if you have to. Just because they have woken does not mean their diaper needs to be changed. If you do need to change your little ones diaper, do so mid feed so that they have the second half of the feed to become in the sleep zone again.
- Swaddled: Keep your little one swaddled throughout the night even through a feed, to ensure that straight after a feed you are able to place them back in their cot.
- Stimulation: Make sure that there is minimal stimulation during night time feeds. Even the sound of your voice can stimulate your little one and cause them to think it is awake time.
- Look after yourself: Feeding through the night is tough work. It is important that you look after yourself and keep yourself hydrated. Keep a bottle of water next to your feeding chair.
We hope you find these tips helpful and we wish you the very best of love, joy and luck on your parenting journey.
Big Sister xoxo