Feeling confused: fighting sleep/need for cluster feeding??

[RLW2227]

New to the forum, sorry I don't know all the abbreviations yet!

My little one is 4weeks old and my second child. Unbenonced to me, my oldest was an angel baby; I very loosely followed the EASY system with him as recommended by a friend but got away with never reading Baby Whisperer...until now. To be honest, I'm not quite sure yet what type of baby my youngest is...except she's is definitely not an angel. 

We've run into a few issues, going to sleep has been one of them. Today we ate (EBF)  every three hours starting at 6am until 6pm. We had a successful going down for nap episode this afternoon so I was hopeful when trying to go to sleep after the 6pm feeding  but ran into the 45 minute mark when it dawned on me maybe she's interested  in a cluster feeding. Do I "wake her" i.e. Un-swaddle, light on?  What I ended up doing  and why I questioned it was  kept her swaddled, low light and fed her but she only nursed for a  few minutes, became drowsy but not asleep. I put her down expecting to start the letting go process with some crying over again but she fell asleep.  I just want to be more prepared if we run into a similar issue tomorrow.  Same goes for dream feeding?!?

[jessmum46]

Hello and welcome!  This may help you get your head around all the abbreviations: Site Acronyms/Abbreviations - What they are, and what they mean.

Congratulations on your second child   I think second time round it's hard to remember the first time when in fact you probably didn't worry about half the things baby 'should' be doing because you didn't know any different - certainly that was my experience!  So from the point of view of a cluster feed or dream feed - although they are things Tracy recommended I think it is fair to say that quite a bit of feeding advice has moved on since her books were published and therefore there is no 'should' about it - you can do whatever you feel is best for you and baby!  But yes, my understanding is that if you want to do a cluster feed then you wake baby, do a 'proper' feed and resettle for sleep afterwards.  The dream feed is a bit different in that you aim to feed while LO (little one) is still asleep, so would tend to do it in the dark and quiet - but honestly if you've found a way that works then go with it  

[RLW2227]

Thank you so much for your response.  Yes, cluster feeding vs dream feeding has made much more sense after a few days to practice. And now that she's not so difficult to get down!!

What really is crazy is having two kids!! I give DD (I read the abbreviations! ) every chance I can to fall asleep in her bed but we are often getting brother to and from school, running errands, etc. and having brother home when getting to sleep can be hard too, being quiet is not something he does well yet!!

Anyway, good luck and thanks again!!