Going to Sleep While Eating

FIrst your baby is probably on a growth spurt. Second, breastfed baby's fall asleep at the breast...normal, wonderful, relaxing and an all around great way to go! 3 weeks is still too early to introduce a pacifier. You are still building your milk supply and having him fall asleep while nursing is a great way to build it. Your baby does not need an artificial nipple...all he needs is you!
That said, you can look for cues that he is not longer nutritive sucking. He is just holding the nipple in his mouth, does not suck rhythmically, is asleep. It is okay to remove him gently from your breast and put him to bed. IF he is really asleep this will not disturb him as all. If he is still hungry he will let you know! LOL
You are doing great giving him exactly what he needs right now..keep it up mama!
HUGS T.

THey are usually not hungry all that much. I know you don't want to use the binky, but I think you should try it. It helped me. MY daughter while nursing was doing that as well and it was just a comfort for her. Once I gave her the binky, only when she was sleepy, she did much better. Good luck!

Have a blessed day!

D. Mattern-Muck
The MOM Team
Raise your income and your rugrats at the same time!
www.formyrugrats.com
"The only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love." Galatians 5:6

my son was a titty baby too...my son was born at 35 weeks..since he was a premee it was hard for him to swollow & suckle, it took a lot of effort therefore he would just give up.... I asked the RNs and they told it was important to wake him up so he could eat well......I did feel bad but I would massage his back,or if he was bundled up I would take off his clothes to make him uncoftable and then he would wake up and eat....im proud to say my son never took a bottle or a binky and weening him off the breast was simple.....so just try waking him up ......or taking it out so he can wake up and contnue to feed or burp him so he can get full and go nite nite....good luck and God BLess................................

I'll third what Taffy said :-) you are doing great.
Also, it is extremely rare for a bf'd baby to 'over eat'. Intro-ing a bottle would not help in this case, and unless it was expressed breast milk, would affect your milk supply.
IF you want to explore the binky possibilities, wait until after 6wks. This will help your milk supply be more firmly established. Intro-ing a binky right now could really mess things up, so please wait.
There are lots of growth spurts early on - if I remember right they are at 3wks, 6wks, 9wks, 12wks and 16wks.
All that to say, your baby is so little still that any artificial nipples would adversely affect your supply.
You are doing great and keep chuggin away!

As for the spit up: if you're firmly patting your baby's back, try a gentler approach. This worked wonders with my dd. Once I switched to gently rubbing or patting her back, spit ups became a rare thing. Another thing to consider is that your ds is still learning how to eat efficiently. He likely still swallows a bit of air when nursing. Picture little bubbles inside him with milk on top. If you gently bring them up, the milk is more likely to stay inside. If, however, it's a more violent burp, then the milk ends up coming out with the air. Keep in mind that most babies stop spitting up around 16wks - it's as though a light bulb goes on and they suddenly stop swallowing air.

HTH
K., mama to bf'd babies
Catherine, 4y
Samuel, 14m (and still going strong)

Taffy said it right! This is what your baby was born to do! Nothing needs to be changed at all - keep up the great work mama! And congrats on your little boy :)

M.
www.Freedom2WorkFromHome.com/M.