Dear Suv,
Maybe I should say it is not unhealthy for a baby to wake up. I know mothers worry if they baby will get enough sleep but babies are great at cat napping - it is very unlikely he won't get enough sleep - just that he gets it when you aren't able to benefit by getting sleep too.
When a baby is still inside you he is getting food constantly. At birth the baby needs to change from getting his food constantly to getting it in fits and starts. Our culture tells us that large feeds with large gaps is the right way to do this. Other cultures (and I might add cultures that don't have so many problems breastfeeding) let the baby have lots of small feeds. Studies on the Kung! have shown that their babies feed for about 20 seconds on average every 11 minutes, day and night. There is no right or wrong way to breastfeed - so long as your baby is gaining well and is happy and healthy.
Many babies, however, are not able to manage the long gaps between feeds that our culture expects of them. There is a very good article by Dr. Katherine Dettwyler
at http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detsleepthrough.html
Generally as a baby grows he is able to drink more at each feed and thus requires less feeds in every 24 hours. Some babies, however, prefer to continue with lots of small feeds and still grow well.
There is another lovely article called Wakeful 4 Month Olds by Jan Barger RN, IBCLC at http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/4mo-sleep.html which explains well why many four month old need to feed at night.
Likewise many mothers body's are not all able to cope with the long gaps either. One very important factor on the mother's side is something called breast capacity. This is the amount of milk a mother can hold in her breasts at any one time. Some mothers have a large capacity and others have a small capacity. The size of your breast capacity makes no difference to the amount of milk you can make but it does make a difference to the amount the baby can eat at one time.
A mother with a large capacity, say over 4oz, will only need to feed her baby 7 times to get the required 28 ozs. Whereas a mother will a smaller capacity, of say, 2.5 oz, will need to feed her baby 11 times to get the same amount of milk into the baby. For this baby he will still need to have 11 feeds every day until he is quite old and eating lots of solids. It can be difficult to get all the 11 feeds in during the day and so this baby is likely to continue to wake up for feeds at night. This waking up is more than healthy as without it the baby wouldn't get enough milk.
It is estimated that over 50% of babies at 12 months still wake up at night. I know that there can be many reasons for waking up at night but I don't think we should rule out hunger. If the baby is really drinking in the middle of the night it shows that food was needed. As a baby who isn't hungry will play with the mother and nipple, might even bite, but is unlikely to feed well. You can see this in babies that are weaning - they will have a couple of mouthfuls and then turn over and go back to sleep.
I'd also like to add a comment about fore milk and hind milk. Many mothers in our culture worry about this and want their babies to feed for at least 30 minutes in order to get the hind milk. But studies show that babies that feed with lots of small feeds actually get more fat in the milk than babies which feed with long intervals.
This is because it is not the length of the feed that indicates the amount of hind milk but rather how full your breasts are. When your breasts are full you have lots of fore milk, when they are emptying (notice that the breast can never be empty - it is a manufacturing unit not a storage unit!) then there is more hind milk. So for the mothers who are worried that they don't have much milk in the afternoon remember that every mouthful the baby takes when your breasts are emptying has more calories than when you feel full.
Best wishes,
SARAH
Maybe I should say it is not unhealthy for a baby to wake up. I know mothers worry if they baby will get enough sleep but babies are great at cat napping - it is very unlikely he won't get enough sleep - just that he gets it when you aren't able to benefit by getting sleep too.
When a baby is still inside you he is getting food constantly. At birth the baby needs to change from getting his food constantly to getting it in fits and starts. Our culture tells us that large feeds with large gaps is the right way to do this. Other cultures (and I might add cultures that don't have so many problems breastfeeding) let the baby have lots of small feeds. Studies on the Kung! have shown that their babies feed for about 20 seconds on average every 11 minutes, day and night. There is no right or wrong way to breastfeed - so long as your baby is gaining well and is happy and healthy.
Many babies, however, are not able to manage the long gaps between feeds that our culture expects of them. There is a very good article by Dr. Katherine Dettwyler
at http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detsleepthrough.html
Generally as a baby grows he is able to drink more at each feed and thus requires less feeds in every 24 hours. Some babies, however, prefer to continue with lots of small feeds and still grow well.
There is another lovely article called Wakeful 4 Month Olds by Jan Barger RN, IBCLC at http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/4mo-sleep.html which explains well why many four month old need to feed at night.
Likewise many mothers body's are not all able to cope with the long gaps either. One very important factor on the mother's side is something called breast capacity. This is the amount of milk a mother can hold in her breasts at any one time. Some mothers have a large capacity and others have a small capacity. The size of your breast capacity makes no difference to the amount of milk you can make but it does make a difference to the amount the baby can eat at one time.
A mother with a large capacity, say over 4oz, will only need to feed her baby 7 times to get the required 28 ozs. Whereas a mother will a smaller capacity, of say, 2.5 oz, will need to feed her baby 11 times to get the same amount of milk into the baby. For this baby he will still need to have 11 feeds every day until he is quite old and eating lots of solids. It can be difficult to get all the 11 feeds in during the day and so this baby is likely to continue to wake up for feeds at night. This waking up is more than healthy as without it the baby wouldn't get enough milk.
It is estimated that over 50% of babies at 12 months still wake up at night. I know that there can be many reasons for waking up at night but I don't think we should rule out hunger. If the baby is really drinking in the middle of the night it shows that food was needed. As a baby who isn't hungry will play with the mother and nipple, might even bite, but is unlikely to feed well. You can see this in babies that are weaning - they will have a couple of mouthfuls and then turn over and go back to sleep.
I'd also like to add a comment about fore milk and hind milk. Many mothers in our culture worry about this and want their babies to feed for at least 30 minutes in order to get the hind milk. But studies show that babies that feed with lots of small feeds actually get more fat in the milk than babies which feed with long intervals.
This is because it is not the length of the feed that indicates the amount of hind milk but rather how full your breasts are. When your breasts are full you have lots of fore milk, when they are emptying (notice that the breast can never be empty - it is a manufacturing unit not a storage unit!) then there is more hind milk. So for the mothers who are worried that they don't have much milk in the afternoon remember that every mouthful the baby takes when your breasts are emptying has more calories than when you feel full.
Best wishes,
SARAH
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