Hello, Cindy...you ask about the mother who is fully bf her healthy,
thriving baby of 3 weeks who sleeps seven hours at night.

> During the course of the
>visit she told the doctor about the 7 hours sleeping.  She was told that she
>should not allow her baby to sleep more than 5 hours at this age because of
>the risk of hypoglycemia.

Oh dear me....here's another way mothers can be ruled by time and
measurements, and   made to feel guilty, undermined and confused. Is this
an international conspiracy to make mothers feel they're doing something
wrong, even when it's quite clear to anyone with more than one
breastfeeding brain cell they're doing great???

Mothers cannot win. They can also be told they're doing something wrong if
the baby *isn't* going seven hours at night!

There is a risk of hypoglycaemia in very young babies who do not feed
enough, so *one* of the red flags *might* be regularly sleeping for hours
and hours.  Other signs might be listlessness, dehydration, general
sleepiness and poor or zero weight gain or weight loss....left untreated,
in serious cases fits. This is clearly not the case with this bouncing
little baby...if there's any real worry, she could be tested, but this
would very invasive and possibly inconclusive.

We've all known perfectly happy bf babies who do go 'through the night'
like this at an early age; it's unusual, but there's nothing wrong when the
baby's healthy.


Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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