- No one ever told me about cluster feeds until I read about them on a blog this year. I had been told to leave at least two hours between feeds every time. And I listened! Just thinking about how much easier the evenings might have been with Marie makes me cringe. Now we have a small morning cluster and a slightly longer evening cluster - and, more importantly, a far happier mummy and baby.
Thinking about it now - the advice I got was to make breastfeeding as much like bottle feeding as possible. (Five feeds, four hour gaps.) I think they were missing the point rather. - It is safe for babies to sleep on their tummies, as long as they are not too hot and have a firm mattress. It's the heat that's dangerous and face-down babies get hot more easily. Babies who don't sleep on their backs will often sleep quite well on their tummies.
- Babies don't need baths every single day. Really. If it makes everyone happy, go for it. Otherwise? Skipping a day is fine. Even two. Get some sleep instead.
(You do need to change their nappies and clean their bottoms. Just in case you were wondering about that part. Also the faces like a wash.)
(Actually I worked this one out about a week into baby #1.)
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Three useful baby facts
Useful information no one bothered to tell me:
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I've had two babies, but I don't know what a cluster feed is :|
ReplyDeleteOh my heck, isn't the amount of MISINFORMATION regarding breastfeeding horrible? I learned, FINALLY, with baby #4 to nurse whenever he acted hungry,whether it had been an hour or THREE hours, and like you, we ended up doing the cluster feeding-and I nursed him FAR longer than any of my others!
ReplyDeleteBaths. Pah.
@LJB - Well, my point exactly. I only found out with baby number three as well.
ReplyDelete@Kori - Yes! Exactly! It makes me sad and furious at the same time.
OK - what the heck is a cluster feed?
ReplyDeleteAnd as regard bathing, my doc told me not to bath my kids severy night in the winter because the air is so dry here, their poor little skins couldn't take it. The teen is having a hard time now that I make him shower all the time now though!
Oops - too many "nows".
ReplyDelete@Expat mum - A cluster feed is exactly what it says on the tin. It's when you breastfeed several times in quite a short space of time. And your ears aren't ringing with screaming and you get to watch some TV and cuddle with your baby. As opposed to STRESS and SCREAMING. I prefer it. (My first baby never needed it. Second could have done with it.)
ReplyDeleteOh, and the bathing thing DOES NOT apply to teenagers, especially boys. Oh how they can pong!
The cluster feeds seem right on, like you said, they are missing the point to mirror breast feeding with bottle feeding.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're figuring it all out for the NEXT one!
Just popping in for a quick read fresh from a cluster feed / cuddle whilst watching tv. Love a good cluster feed just before bed. Also live n the deluded world that says he will sleep for longer if he gets it... Hmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteIt took me til my third to figure out the bath thing - but I may have over done it .. he's five now and likes nothing more than to stand in the shower, lathering himself with fruity shower gels asking me "Do i smell nice?". Yes I may have overdone the not needing baths thing, but I assume it will serve him well when he hits puberty.
ReplyDeleteAgree, agree and agree. The day I worked out the bath thing, the sun came out, hypothetically speaking.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it we find out this stuff after the fact? I found out all kinds of useful information after my kids weren't babies any more. Now if only I could go back to the beginning with that knowledge. Actually, scrap that.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I did cluster feeds and i didn't even know I was doing it.
ReplyDeleteGo girl! Mother knows best. Your experience is the best expert.
I'm very late visiting you! Congratulations on the new baby!
ReplyDeleteWell, it's not like they roll in mud, now is it? I used to only bathe mine's once a week, and they turned out fine.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd read the baby whisperer you'd know all about cluster feeds. Why will no one do what I tell them?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to realize that I've done cluster feeding with both of my kids :D I just always fed them after they woke up from a nap... never paid attention to how many hours had passed... and then sometimes I fed them back to sleep as well :D
ReplyDelete@Bethany - HA bloody HA! ;-)
ReplyDelete@PantsWithNames - Hey we live in the same deluded world! Although admittedly it would have helped if I'd realised last night that his nappy had overflowed. Ah well. Try better next time.
@Nikkii - Your third? Poor you!
@Countess - I can see how that would happen. It's ridiculous, the obsession with bathing babies.
@Lady Mama - Very funny. Indeed. Do not pass go, you will not receive whatever amount you get in dollars.
@gaelikaa - Thank you.
And yes, mother knows best. Shame I only found that confidence after a few years. At the start, I was too worried about "doing it wrong."
@Angie Muresan - Once is week is our minimum as well for the older ones. They just don't smell the way adults do. Some mothers do look at me as if I have two heads when I admit that, though.
@Jo - I know. It's a bummer, that. I have a very similar problem.
@LJB - That's another thing - you're not "meant to" nurse them to sleep. I have a book which actually suggests that you should wake a baby completely before putting them down in their beds. WTF? These people obviously don't live in the real world of the sleep-deprived mother.
I'm so glad I worked out the bath thing with no1!!
ReplyDeleteGreat list :-)
Aren't blogs fabulous! The source of all fab knowledge
ReplyDeleteInterestingly the 4 hour feed thing is based on artifically feeding calves and has nothing to do with what a human baby should really need... which is probably why it doesn't work
Hi! I've just found your blog. Love it. I'm feeding the lazy, healthy, hands free way too. Cluster feeding is totally spot on, and four hourly!? Bah to that! Do adults go four hourly without a drink?
ReplyDeleteI'm an Australian living in Belgium with two little'uns. Will settle in for more of a read later.. Very glad to have found you! Rhiannon
www.flourchildren.blogspot.com
Yes, yes, and yes!! I read a book called Baby Wise and it said to keep the baby on a 3 hour feeding schedule. It is what allowed Finn to sleep through the night when he was very young. Although I almost lost my life when he was only 5 weeks old, so I can't say how it would work for a longer period of time.
ReplyDeleteRe. #3 - You're on kid #3 and are just figuring this out?!
ReplyDelete