Sleeping Through the Night By six weeks of age or ten pounds of weight, some infants will sleep up to six hours at night, while others still awaken after three to five hours. If your baby awakens and appears genuinely hungry, it makes sense to nurse him instead of trying to get him to sleep through the night. During night nursings, keep things subdued and “strictly business.” Use dim lighting, don’t play with your baby, and don’t even change his diaper unless he has had a bowel movement or has a diaper rash. As long as your baby is awakening at night, you should make it a priority to nap when your baby naps during the day in order to maintain your physical well-being. One of the most common explanations for faltering weight gain in a once-thriving breastfed baby in the early months of life is that the infant began sleeping eight or more hours at night. Sleeping through the night is a welcome relief to sleep-deprived parents, but it can undermine breastfeeding when it happens too soon. When a young baby (under about four months) sleeps all night, not only does she miss one or more important feedings, but the mother’s breasts go a long interval without being emptied. All too often, the result is diminished milk supply and inadequate infant weight gain. Remember that persistently full, engorged breasts send a powerful message to the body to decrease milk production. The first time a breastfed baby sleeps through the night, the mother usually awakens with hard, uncomfortable breasts. A few days later, she may remark that her breasts are no longer uncomfortably full in the morning. The explanation is that her milk supply has decreased because her breasts are being emptied less frequently. If your baby starts sleeping through the night while you are fully breastfeeding, I suggest you use hand expression or a breast pump to empty your breasts just before you retire. Expressing milk before your bedtime will shorten the interval that your breasts go unemptied. This will help maintain your level of milk production and help assure that your baby gets enough to eat during her waking hours. You can freeze the milk you express and save it for later use. If you choose not to express milk before you retire, make sure both your breasts get well drained first thing in the morning. Due to the abundant milk available after a long night interval, your baby may leave significant milk after the first morning feeding, especially on the second side. Hand expressing or pumping the extra milk remaining after he nurses will assure continued generous production the rest of the day.
