Is Overnight Newborn Care Really Worth It if I’m Planning to Breastfeed Exclusively?
Adjusting to life with a newborn
When welcoming a baby into your family, there are a lot of moving parts at once. Whether it’s your first time bringing a baby home, or you’re growing your existing brood, it’s normal to need some assistance and support as you adjust to life with a new baby. Having a professional, such as an overnight postpartum doula, to help you at night can be a real game changer. Being able to maximize the sleep you get will aid in your recovery from childbirth, ease the adjustment as a family, and help improve or avoid symptoms of postpartum depression.
Sleep deprivation can negatively impact memory, decision making, mood, and psychomotor skills, and increases the likelihood of experiencing postpartum depression. Some studies have even shown that in women with no previous history of depression, postpartum depression was over three times as prevalent for women with poor sleep quality. Having the support of an overnight doula can help increase the amount of sleep you get at night, and improve the quality of that sleep.
Night feeding and breastfeeding schedules for newborns
In the early days of infancy, your baby will eat every 1-3 hours, including overnight. Feedings can take a long time while you are still figuring out which position works best for your baby, how to get the baby latched on, as well as making sure they’re staying awake enough to feed. Add in burping baby to get all of their gas out, changing diapers, then sometimes changing diapers again because newborns are on a nearly continuous cycle of input-output-input-output, and getting them back to sleep, and it can sometimes take an hour or more each feeding if you are doing all of these things on your own.
The benefits of a newborn care specialist for breastfeeding support
However, if you have the support of overnight newborn care with an overnight doula, they will take the lead on baby’s care through the night hours. Here’s how:
Assess your newborn’s needs
If the baby wakes up, they will first assess their needs and whether the baby is hungry or just looking for a snuggle, trying to move some gas out, or needs a dry diaper.
Bring you the baby for night time feeding
When it is time for a feed, you can have the baby brought to you if you prefer to feed in a side-lying position or even upright but in your bed. While you are feeding, your doula will happily refill your water glass, grab a burp cloth or change of clothing if the need arises, or sit and chat quietly with you to keep you awake during feeding. Your doula has training in lactation and is always happy to offer advice on positioning, encouraging good and efficient feeding habits from baby, while offering pointers on latch.
Put your newborn back to sleep
Once the baby has finished eating, you can lay right back down and go to sleep, knowing your baby is in the capable hands of a trained professional who will get the baby back to sleep, and be listening intently for the baby’s cries.
Reading newborn cues
Having the peace of mind that someone else is not only listening for the baby, but is skilled in knowing how to respond to them, is often the added layer of support needed for you to be able to really relax into a deeper sleep. We are seasoned problem solvers that have worked with many different families and babies, and are always happy to offer our knowledge and support to the families we work with. Helping to ease your anxieties about all of the little (and not so little!) noises that babies make, quieting your fears and lessening your Google searches while aiding you in understanding your newborn’s current needs are some of our favorite things to do!
Customized overnight newborn care
I always like to remind parents that there are many right and good ways to parent and that won’t look the same for every family. As such, there are many different ways that we are happy to customize the support your family receives when working with our team of doulas at Happy Family After.
Bottle feeding practice
Some breastfeeding parents will prefer to use a pump to remove milk ahead of time, providing a bottle of milk for your doula to feed the baby. This can be a great way to really extend your continuous block of sleep while you have help, especially for people who struggle to fall back to sleep after waking. Other parents might find pumping to be challenging, or would rather wake for each feeding, utilizing support to go back to sleep as quickly as possible. Our doulas are experienced with helping parents to meet their chestfeeding goals, including supporting the use of donor milk, supplemental nursing systems, and bottle feeding pumped milk. We are always happy to try a few different strategies to help you find what works best for you, and offer suggestions that come from a wealth of experience working with families in this capacity.
Language Matters
Our team of doulas at Happy Family After are experienced in working with families of every shape and size, and happy to support families with two dads or two moms, families that have used a gestational donor or surrogate who will be pumping milk for the baby, nonbinary and transgender parents, single parents by choice, and non-related caregivers. Whatever your journey to becoming a family, we are honored to be welcomed into your home in this tender time of transition. You may hear your doulas use the term chestfeeding or bodyfeeding, which is just an inclusive way of saying “feeding that came from a human’s body” because not all parents who chestfeed are mothers or use the term breast. We are always happy to adjust our language to what feels the most right for your family, so please don’t hesitate to let us know if you go by Zaza or Bizzy, or some equally awesome parenting nickname, if you’d like to use gender neutral pronouns for yourself or your baby, you have a preferred term to refer to your feeding journey, or literally any other adjustments that make you feel supported. You have the right to change your mind, too! Consider this an ongoing request to always let us know what helps you feel your best as a parent, and we will make certain it happens.
Washing bottles and pump parts
Your overnight doula is typically happy to wash bottles and pump parts, and do light tasks such as fold a load of laundry in between caring for the baby.
Caring for multiples
Having more than one baby? Our overnight newborn care doulas are experienced with caring for multiples and happy to share all of their tips and tricks for balancing life with multiple babies in the home.
Overnight Newborn Care for New York and New Jersey Families
What are you waiting for? We have the perfect doula ready to work with your family. You just have to reach out!