Whew, I just finished reading through days and days of Digests and finally
feel like I'm top of things (for a few hours at least...).

I wanted to add my two (personal) cents' worth on this topic of bottles and
giving mum relief time at night. Before our baby was born, I thought the
concept of the dutiful father arising to get the fussing baby to change
his/her diaper and bring him/her to me for nursing sounded great. The
reality of it was that I usually woke a little before the baby did and I
could be there in no time (no co-sleeping yet). If I had had to wait until
my husband woke up, there would have been an extremely upset baby, an
annoyed and very wide awake mother, and a very sleepy father probably
incapable of finding the baby's room. It just didn't seem fair, either, that
he was the guy who had to be up and off to the office while I could sneak a
nap sometime during the day. So, he never got up at night and never fed a
bottle and it worked quite well. He bonded well and has a pretty good
relationship with his sons (well, not the 13 year old who right now thinks
his parents are pretty much "dorks")...

I'm a big believe in the common rhythm of sleep between baby and mother and
wonder if  that's why many nursing mothers seem to be less disturbed about
night waking than mothers NOT bf. Seems to me that being jarred out of a
very deep sleep would be very distressing night after night. If, however,
you're in a light sleep phase already, it's not so bad (not something I
looked forward to, I admit, but something I learned to cope with).

Leslie Ayre-Jaschke, BEd, IBCLC
Peace River Breastfeeding Clinic
Peace River Alberta, Canada