How bad is your "witching hour"???

[rosegarden620]

So I'm sure most of us if not all of us are familiar with the infamous witching hour/cluster feeding time. Our LOs time is between 9pm-1am.

This is where we go through our entire Rolodex of tasks in an attempt to find what pleases the missy. Dh and I take turns. My "thing" may work for 25 minutes then it doesn't work anymore and we switch.

We do singing (like duets lol), rocking, swaying, swaddling, humming, burping, dancing, nursing, sucking, bath time...and more. Bath time is our midway point and usually calms her down to a few whimpers and than she's asleep after a good feed.

The problem is getting her to get a good feed. Hard to tell if her fussiness at the breast is as a result of the decreased flow that comes at night or if my milk is too fast - I wonder the latter because her sucking and swallowing is so intense during this time. After 10-15 2min at a time feeds she's basically fallen asleep for her longest stretches of sleep (3.5-4hrs). So it works out in our favor I suppose.

She's gaining wonderfully- 39% in weight increase by her 4 week visit. Plenty of dirty diapers.

I know it's a phase and will pass sooner rather than later but wondering what your "hour" is like, what works and how do you he a good feed with the cluster feeding?

Also, the paci doesn't interfere with cluster feeding right? She will let me know when she's hungry verus wanting to suck...right??

 

[bdb84]

My DD's witching hours are between 4-7PM. Some times I can get her to squeeze in a cat nap for a breather.. other times she's just a fuss pot the entire time. We nurse often, but she is also able to be soothed with her paci as well. It's never interfered with our feeding, and she also sleeps through the night by my definition (7PM-4AM, nurse, then back to sleep until after 7AM), so she's obviously getting enough during the day to sustain her through the night.