Like them or hate them, night feedings are a part of raising children. Gone are the days of 8 hours of interrupted sleep. If your wife is nursing at night, your involvement in feeding is minimal but there are still ways for us guys to help out. If bottle feeding, you have a chance to share the joy, or suffer equally.

Whether it is bottle feeding or nursing, keep these tips in mind and hopefully everyone will be a little less grumpy in the morning.

Night Feeding Tips

1. If bottle feeding, keep a stock of ready made bottles in the fridge. With bottles all ready made, the only thing left to do is warm and serve.
2. Keep lights on low, or off completely. By keeping it as dark as possible, it will help avoid your baby thinking it is time to wake up and party. We use a night light or hallway light. Gives us enough light to work without being too bright and waking up baby.
3. Keep your voice low. Yelling or talking loudly can be enough to wake up your baby.
4. Avoid a diaper change when possible. I am not suggesting leaving your baby in dirty diaper all night but if it is only soiled a little bit chances are the diaper has soaked up most of the moisture and should be fine until morning.
5. Avoid making any loud noises where possible. In your zombie sleep deprived state you may find your self stumbling and slamming doors in the dark.
6. Run a tag team effort. Instead of running around the house with baby, or constantly maneuvering them, have one person heat up bottle, grab diapers, etc while the other continues feeding.

Be all business at night. As a new parent, often times you and your spouse won’t be able to resist trying to get the baby to laugh or smile just one last time during feeding. Everyone will get back to sleep quicker if you are efficient and get baby back in bed with as little distraction as possible.

Your goal is to teach your little one that daytime is playtime, and nighttime is eat and get back to sleep as soon as possible!

Posted by Chris from www.thenewdadguide.com/