Question on cluster feeds/tanking up

[dumbmum101]

Hi - I originally posted this in the EASY forum but moving here just in case....

I'm working on implementing EASY with my 2nd LO (2 weeks old today). Something I never got the hang of with #1 were the early evening cluster feeds or 'tanking up'.

Main question is, if LO crashes out after the 6pm feed, do you treat the 8 pm feed like a dream feed e.g try not to disturb them too much/don't burp/put straight back down?

LO #2 is quite a greedy boy compared to my low birthweight and jaundiced firstborn who I had on a 2 hour schedule at this stage. 5 nights out of the last 7 he has been 'naturally cluster feeding' e.g continuously feeding anywhere between 6-10pm (exhausting) but has slept very well afterwards (best 2 nights we got a long stretch from 10pm - 2:30am, then through until 6am!!!). However, on the nights he's been hitting the Tracy schedule pretty closely e.g. falling asleep sometime after the 6pm feed (either 6:30 or 7ish) when I've snuck in for a top-up feed at around 8pm, I have succeeded only in disturbing him and then he's been very wakeful until the 'DF' time around 10-11pm.

He crashed out tonight at 6:30pm and it's now 8:40 and he seems to be sleeping quite soundly, so I'm tempted to leave him until 10pm for the DF. But also keen to 'tank him up' so is it worth me potentially disturbing him for the sake of getting as much into him as possible?

I am BF'ing BTW. I also think I might have quite a forceful let-down as he often I pulls off after gulp, gulp, gulping his feeds in 10-15 mins max, face covered in milk, looking like an illustration of debauchery in the last days of Rome or something. Think he'd quite like to suckle for comfort but finds it hard to do as he can't cope with all the milk coming his way - poor love.  2 weeks too young for a dummy?

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An update on what happened last night. He woke at around 9:10 naturally for a feed. I was then left wondering whether to bother with a DF at 11pm as it would only be 1.5 hours since I put him down after that last feed. However, nature intervened, and just as I had decided to not bother with the DF, just as I was clambering into bed at 11pm, he did a epic poop, so had to change him and did an 11pm feed anyway. (Although hardly a DF given he was wide awake after the nappy change).

He woke at 2am and 5am ish anyway ... Then grunted his way through the 5am-7am cycle meaning poor sleep for everyone in the room 

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

If you know he crashes at 6/6:30 ish what about doing the tanking up sooner? That way perhaps baby will last until df time? Though tbh they have so many gs when they are tiny that things change really fast!

As for the letdown, check this link out it has lots of ideas to help deal with that!

Oversupply and Overactive (Forceful) Let-Down

[dumbmum101]

No real pattern to feed times at the moment so waiting for things to settle down really. But it would be great if he did catnap sometime around 7pm -8pm so I could get #1's bath and BT sorted, uninterrupted.

I'm interested whether other LO's tend to wake naturally for that 2nd cluster feed or whether other mums treat it a bit like a DF?

Last night I gave home a top-up at about 8:30pm but don't think he took much and he woke naturally at 10:10 looking for a feed, then couldn't get him down until 11:30 ish!

Ugh! The little wotsit totally lulled me into a false sense of security the first week! I really was deluded enough to think we were down to 1 night feed already. Silly me. Just getting my hopes up because he's such a chunky monkey  I was hoping we'd be STTN in the first 3 months.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

We always had bedtime by 7:30/8 so that was the last feed after the bedtime routine and the one before was quite close to it at that age so they were already awake, kind of EAEAS for that last bit of the day. Could be a growth spurt as well if he is waking more at night.

[athenasmom]

Great thread. My lo is 3 weeks old. I try to do the same as MasynSpencerElliott (sorry I don't know the name) and feed again after the bath. My problem is that dd is very refluxy and has to be held up for at least 20 min after feeds. So technically she is nursed to sleep right now. I know that she is very young and later will stay up during feeds better, so hopefully this will not be an issue later. W hat do you do about this Masyn?

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I always fed to sleep at bedtime for the first couple of months, I think DD3 lasted the longest and stopped at 3-4 months (they all stopped on their own, all 3 are very spirited and finally needed more than just that to fall asleep!).