Expressing milk for night time?

[Yazz_n_bump]

Hello! I'm new here.
My son is exclusively breast fed (well he's only 5 days old lol), but my milk has come through and he loves it. The thing is I struggle at night times, I am quite anaemic and have been for the past 2 years so at night I fall asleep outta the blue and things.
Which scares me quite a bit as I don't want to fall asleep while BF my son. My partner suggested I could express milk & use a bottle at night as he drinks a lot quicker from a bottle (when we give him his ounce of water a day) at my breast he's always around an hour or so each time.
Does anyone else do this? Is it a good idea? Need you expert girlies advice! xx

 

[becstar]

The thing with expressing so early on is that night time is the best time to feed (especially early on) as you have more prolactin then and feeding at night encourages your suppy even more.

You can safely feed laying down so it is okay if you fall asleep. I wish I had done it sooner, I was a wreck in the early days. https://naturalparentsnetwork.com/side-lying-nursing-a-breastfeeding-tutorial/

Congratulations!

 

[becstar]

PS Why do you have to give him an ounce of water a day?

 

[Lownthwaite]

Like becstar says expressing this eary on is not recommended for a number of reasons - also can I ask why he has the water? EBF babies don't need water you see

 

[kmac625]

I would try nursing while lying down as well. It's been my saviour for Clara's early morning feeds. I also was wondering why you're giving your lo water so early on. It's not needed and in fact, giving young babies too much water (I have no idea how much is too much) can cause an imbalance in their electrolytes.

 

[Cloberella]

Yeah nursing lying down is amazing! The difference it makes to how much sleep you get is incredible.

Congratulations by the way

 

[Yazz_n_bump]

PS Why do you have to give him an ounce of water a day?

Oh because he's still VERY windy. I know exclusively BF means we shouldn't need too but for some odd reason he gets trapped wind and has been constipated for the past day.. but that was because my milk supply has litterarly only come through today as he's feeding a lot better now so fingers crossed we can stop giving him water in the next day or so.

 

[Yazz_n_bump]

I would try nursing while lying down as well. It's been my saviour for Clara's early morning feeds. I also was wondering why you're giving your lo water so early on. It's not needed and in fact, giving young babies too much water (I have no idea how much is too much) can cause an imbalance in their electrolytes.

Does it? I didn't know that!

The MW suggested we give him a ounce of water (litterarly only that) to help his constipation as my milk supply has only really come in today. As soon as he pooh's we're stopping the water as I'm not keen on it either I just don't want him to get ill or something with constipation. I'm probably panicing to much though.

I'm deffiently going to give that lying down postion a go.

 

[Yazz_n_bump]

The thing with expressing so early on is that night time is the best time to feed (especially early on) as you have more prolactin then and feeding at night encourages your suppy even more.

You can safely feed laying down so it is okay if you fall asleep. I wish I had done it sooner, I was a wreck in the early days. https://naturalparentsnetwork.com/side-lying-nursing-a-breastfeeding-tutorial/

Congratulations!

Thank you for the link. I'm deffiently going to try out that postion it looks really good!

 

[becstar]

I hope it works for you - it was a lifesaver for us!

 

[kmac625]

I would try nursing while lying down as well. It's been my saviour for Clara's early morning feeds. I also was wondering why you're giving your lo water so early on. It's not needed and in fact, giving young babies too much water (I have no idea how much is too much) can cause an imbalance in their electrolytes.

Does it? I didn't know that!

The MW suggested we give him a ounce of water (litterarly only that) to help his constipation as my milk supply has only really come in today. As soon as he pooh's we're stopping the water as I'm not keen on it either I just don't want him to get ill or something with constipation. I'm probably panicing to much though.

I'm deffiently going to give that lying down postion a go.

If he was constipated and the mw told you to I guess it's the thing to do (not pooing was never one of our issues...she's always gone many times a day). I'd never heard of giving water to such a young baby though, but I'm sure your mw knows what she's talking about.