Breastfeeding ....and co-sleeping? Burp and change baby..or drift off to sleep?

Question

I breastfed my 1st two children for a few months each time...so I know about letting the baby nurse while you lay on your side...yeah this is so much easier in the middle of the night than getting up, warming a bottle, ect....but my question is....if you do this...dont you still get up when the baby finishes nursing, burp him/her and change the diaper??? (Warming a bottle is the easy part!)

I was always taught....feed, burp, change....feed, burp, change....but it seems so intrusive after baby (and maybe you) have peacefully drifted off

What do you do?

Answer 1

Many breastfed babies don't need to be burped. If you nurse the baby before he gets upset and is crying, he isn't likely to swallow any air if he is latched on correctly. After all, breasts don't have air in them like bottles. :-)

If baby poops, then yes, he'll need to be changed. If his diaper is super wet and in danger of soaking through, he'll need to be changed. If it's just a little wet, better to leave it and let him sleep unless there are some skin problems going on.

Answer 2

That was always another beauty of breastfeeding for me...I NEVER burped my babies, because there was no need to do it! For the most babies nursing is such a 'closed system' that air is not introduced into the stomach like with bottle feeding. Now there may be the occasional baby, for whatever reason (like nasal congestion) who stops sucking and gets in a mouth breath, but not very often... If the baby is older and is not having little bowel movements with every diaper, just SLEEP! Full tummy for baby, more rest for mom!!

Answer 3

I am a mom of two and am nursing right now. I was told by my doc and have read that breast feed babies are much less gassy than bottlefeed babies. When i fall sleep nursing i dont burp her and she is fine and i never change diapers in the middle of the night either unless they are already awake. both my two year old and two month old sleep through the night ( the two month old only wakes up to be fed and goes right back to sleep) I would never dream of waking her up to change or burp her . She obviously must be happy if shes asleep and if she does need to be burped or changed she'll let you know (trust me!)

Answer 4

I normally drift off when nursing this way, but as soon as she lets go, I do burp her....which leads to waking her up some, so I also change her then as well. I then nurse on the other side, which is generally only to get her comfortably back to sleep and put her to bed after that. To help, I have found a quiet place at night with very dim lighting to change her by....keeps her semi-asleep.

Answer 5

That's only if baby is wet ,when he/she wakes you up.You feel inside the diaper and see if it's still good to go another wee round.
Of course it may seem a slight damp.But thats most likely from sweat.They are plastic you know.II would say you change first if neccessary.Then feed.
Those gown draw string pajamas are the best for newborns and young infants Speaking of which (I don't whats wrong with those
people anyways.(they make that draw string often too large.
Your best trimming it down and re knotting it.If you use one that seems so.Just a diaper and a blanket wrap (like hospitals,not as tight )may work .But people are thinking of barrier .New born infants manage to ooze out of every diaper regardless.Use
crib matts After you feed him/her /you usually burp him/her
unless your lucky to have a auto burper as I once had.

Answer 6

I was co sleeping until about 2 weeks ago. I would mostly wait until he cried hungry and lift my shirt and undo my nursing bra and lay down and feed him from one side, he would fall asleep and I would go lay on the other side of him so he could alternate boobs for the next time. Sometimes I just slept in my nursing bra. If I were to just let it all hang out, I would have leaked everywhere. Also, my son didn't just "eat through the night" lol....the mental pic of that makes me laugh. Like I'm an open bar or something haha. Most of the time, I stay awake, because its hard to sleep through a baby sucking and tugging at me, but sometimes I would be sooo dead tired, and wake up a little later, with my boob squished up besides his mouth and not remembering falling asleep again.

Answer 7

Breast feeding laying down is sometimes the only way us moms can get any rest, which is very important for milk production! I wouldn't worry about burping the baby until he/she wakes up, and same with the diaper change (unless of course it's a dirty one) And as for co-sleeping being dangerous...rubbish! Very few moms even move when the baby is in the bed, and as for crushing them or suffocating them, I've never heard of it happening! So unless the mom has drank alcohol or done any type of drug, I wouldn't worry about it. I myself have nursed and co-slept with my babies and they've always woken up healthy and happy!

Just watch out for those tossy-turny dads in the bed, they don't have the same instinct as us moms to know the baby is there!

Answer 8

I got my baby into a three to four hour feeding schedual. I would breast feed, burp, and change his pants if needed. At the begining i had to give him breast milk in a bottle to calculate how much he was getting in since he was six weeks premature. I find it so much easier to breast feed. If i get up walk to the kitchen with a screaming baby i was more awake than if i got up walked back to bed and fed him. Plus feeding with a bottle for me put more air in his belly and took longer to burp and made him more fussy. Where as with breast feeding, he just falls right back to sleep. I recommend reading "baby wise". It teaches you to train your baby to sleep through the night and still have him be healthy. Good luck!

Answer 9

If the baby has fallen asleep then I say let him sleep... co sleeping is very dangerous though! I know people do it, but so many things can happen. I say transport the baby back to his/her bed. If he has gas it may come out with all the re adjusting. I bottle fed so I really can't relate. I changed before I fed, if they fell asleep then I burped as I carried them to bed and it seemed to work well.

Answer 10

I had a co-sleeper attached to the bed so once he was asleep I could move him to his sleep space without getting out of bed myself and minimal risk of waking him. I didn't bother burping him (less necessary w/breastfeeding) or changing his diaper overnight unless it had a BM or was very full of urine. The co-sleeper was such a great idea, I wish I had it for my first son too!