A few questions, concerns, and vents.

[WindyCityMom]

Hello everyone!
My DD2 is 6 weeks old, EBFed, not one single bottle or paci. She's sleeping about 5 hours straight from the time she goes down and then a 4 hour stretch after that. Then a 3 hour, and then she's up on and off through most of the day eating every two hours or whenever she feels like it. So that's going good.

Our sleeping arrangement is a sidecarred crib. It's only her, myself, and DH. DD1 has her own bed.

I do have a couple of questions:

NAK..

1. is it okay that she's sleeping so long? i feel silly asking this because I know most EBF moms struggle through the first few months with sleep deprivation.. so I feel totally abnormal and am wondering if something is wrong with letting her sleep for so long.

2. My husband is a HUGE snoring machine. He doesn't wake the baby up, but she doesn't go down if he's snoring. He doesn't always snore, but when he does, you'd better run for cover, because I swear the house is shaking and something may fall down on top of you .. but honestly.. how do other mamas deal with this? Do you kick him out? A few times he has gone to the couch, but kind of flat out refuses to in his sleepy state (he is VERY difficult to rouse, I'm talking screaming at the top of my lungs type difficult).

3. Any advice for NOT getting milk all over the place during feeds? *sigh*. I know that that part could probably go in the BF forum but I figured I could lump it in here. We don't lie-down nurse. We sit up. And there's always milk everywhere. Any tricks of the trade?

4. A question for my husband... what do you do when baby starts crawling? We have stone floors (yeah, I know, less than ideal but in our temporary living situation theres not much we can do) and dont want her to come crashing down. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'd rather hang around nursing all night than crawl around.

TIA everyone

[mamacolleen]

Congrats on the new little one!

I would definitely not worry at all about letting your 6wk old sleep for 5 hours at a stretch. My DD's sleeping pattern was exactly like yours at that age (in fact she gave me a few nights of 7-8 hours at a time even!) until she was about 3 months or so. Now it's up every 2 hours or so to nurse and I long for the early days. I would say get your sleep in now while you can because there's no guarantee it will last for long!

My DH snores too, although not every night. It doesn't seem to bother DD thank goodness. If it's really loud for me, I just pop in earplugs... I can still hear the baby when she needs me. Although she sleeps in a side-carred co-sleeper and not right in our bed, so I don't know how safe earplugs are when you're totally co-sleeping.

About the milk all over the place, I remember using a lot of towels and changing a lot of sheets in the AM. I don't know if there's much else you can do except just ride it out.

My baby isn't crawling yet, so I'm not sure what we'll do then. Either put our mattress on the floor and a twin mattress beside us (my vote) or put her in a 4 side crib in our room (DH's vote). I think you have lots of time to figure that out!

[prancie]

put an exercise mat or something of that nature where baby would be likely to fall off. Is your bed very high up? You could get a lower bed frame as well. As for the mess, i used lilypadz and that helped with off side leaking, and lots of prefolds for the rest!

I would have your DH get his snoring checked out. Everyone snores but chronic loud snoring can signal deeper problems. I just tell my DH to turn over, or we use breathe right strips.

[sapphire_chan]

regarding 2 and 3, how about squirting him up the nose?

Seriously though, horrible snoring is a sign of possible medical problems and should be looked into.

And I know some mamas sleep in soft bras until the supply evens out and leaking reduces.

[texmati]

What I have heard from LC's, is as long as your kiddo is back to her birth weight, don't wake them up for feeds! Just let them sleep, and thank your lucky stars.

Regarding the milk everywhere, I'm 4 months into breastfeeding, and still havent gotten that one figured out. To make it less messy during the day, I wear a bra with a nursing pad on one side. At night, I use a prefold on the side that he's not nursing, but I end up with a soaked shirt in the morning.

[Icehockey18]

Congrats mama!
1. I would say, let your lo sleep (and get some sleep yourself!!). Unless your lo is not gaining, the sleep is I'm fine, I'm sure.
2. For the milk mess, I just washed the sheets often. I leaked a lot!! Sometimes I would leak so much I would soak ds' onesie.... Oops! But eventually it slowed down. I still sometimes leak a little, but not enough to get on the sheets.
3. Dh sometimes snores (although he swears he doesnt). It doesn't bother ds but it bothers me! I just kick him 'till he rolls over and stops.
4. For the floors, maybe a think quilt or blanket? Not sure on that one, we have carpet....

[rzberrymom]

1) As long as she's gaining, enjoy it while it lasts! My babe started sleeping 5-7 hour stretches at about 2 weeks, and I tried to relish every minute of it.

2) We use a white noise machine to drown out snoring.

3) It got less messy for us once we were able to nurse lying down (I think that finally worked at about 8 weeks), and I was able to put a little burp cloth under her.

4) Some people use bedrails, some people get a frame that is very low to the ground, some temporarily put the mattress directly on the ground during that stage, etc.

[WindyCityMom]

Thanks everyone She's a chunker so no worries there.

Last night I discovered that the snoring doesn't bother her much.. what bothers her is MY reaction to the snoring.. kicking DH, nudging him, him grumbling... etc.

I found out that what does bother her is when my DH moves/turns over. He's a 260lb guy (also somewhat explaining the snoring.. we're working on it). He doesn't roll.. he sort of does a flip and has a pretty hard landing. I told him that he reminds me of a fish out of water but he didn't find that too funny

Hopefully we don't have issues during the crawling stage. We still have awhile to go. I might put an air mattress at the foot of our bed or something. Good thing is she's in a sidecarred crib which makes for one less side of the bed free for falling off of

[Mya's Mommy]

Hi Windy City Mom,

To help with your questions:

1. Like the other mama's said- Enjoy your sleeping baby! My DD slept that too in the beginning, but now at 7 1/2 months wakes up much more frequently, so enjoy the sleep now because it doesn't always last. As long as her weight is good you don't need to worry.

2. You may want to ask your husband to sleep else where if it is really bothering you and then your reaction is bothering your baby. My husband has been sleeping in the spare room since our DD was about a month old. He didn't snore, but we found there wasn't enough room in our queen size bed for everyone to be comfortable. Your baby is only a baby once and this sleeping arrangement won't last forever. It really works well for us.

3. I can't really offer advice on the spilled milk because I've never had that problem, my milk was very low in the beginning, so again, I say ENJOY that milk everywhere. I would have LOVED to have that problem, you are so very lucky!

4. When DD couldn't roll over I lined the edges of the bed with pillows and also put pillows on the floor just in case. Now that she has started to crawl we have put up bedrails.

Hope that helps, sounds like you are doing a wonderful job with your new baby!