you might try swinging before milking.
My wife was a nursery nurse for 30 years and she never even heard of anyone doing this. You can bet that if it was a good idea, there would be all kinds of people selling a kit to do it. She specialised in preterm babies and was part of an outreach team that helped the mothers (frequently young teens) to cope at home with tiny (2lb) babies. Breast was not always possible, but always desirable, and much easier and more hygienic.
Some babies take a long time and the tiny ones might take an hour or more to take in 1 oz.
Her professional advice - Don’t do it. There are many ways to get a baby to sleep, but this is not one of them.
My professional advice - Don’t listen to nurses, who often know fuck-all about the science behind their practice, as evidenced by the prevalence of anti-vaxers.
Adjustment of human milk is an established practice, especially for pre-term babies.
For sleep, well, I’m not familiar with the scientific literature. I suggest running your plan by someone who is.
Adjustment for preemies is to add calories and protein, not exclusively fat. I admit, this does make me uneasy and concerned about precipitating diarrhea (which happens when people, not just babies, take in too much fat at once) and mucking with the developing lipid/cholesterol levels and metabolic habits of the body in unknown ways.
But more than that, I’m just not convinced it will make a functional difference in sleep habits. For years people have tried adding cereal to milk and formula to help babies sleep through the night, and it just doesn’t work. Formula fed babies don’t sleep any better than breastfed babies, and by 10 weeks, breastfeeding (naturally breastfeeding, not mucking about with composition) report better sleep than formula feeding moms. Baby bellies are pretty damn efficient at moving things through, and there’s just no evidence that food of any type has an impact on babies’ sleep cycles. Sleep cycles are determined by complex hormonal interactions, not diet.
You certainly don’t have to convince me, of course. But I do hope it’s something you’ve discussed with your pediatrician.
I assume this means that during the day, the baby is getting “skim” breastmilk, since the fat is being saved for the evening. That sounds like a recipe for a hungry, crabby baby during the day.
Or is your wife pumping extra milk just for skimming, and dumping it, them feeding the baby direct from the tap during the day? If that’s the case, then the baby is getting an unbalanced diet.
IANAD, nutritionist, or anything. I just can’t fathom that this is a good idea.
Also, confirmation bias, and post hoc errors and all, I wonder if your other child who slept more after a bottle of formula was just sleeping because it was night, and everyone else in the house was in bed, it was dark, and quiet, so the baby slept, and it really had nothing to do with the formula.
Are you her mother? Her father? Her pediatrician? Her caretaker? A childcare professional or medical professional? No, you say? None of those? Ok. Just curious. LOL
I mean, if I wanted parenting advice, I’d ask, right?
I know that I myself sleep better when I am getting plenty of good-quality fat, and I’m also a lot calmer. If it doesn’t work for her, for any reason, I’ll move on to other ideas, but I think it’s worth a try.
Assuming that Mom isn’t exclusively pumping already, then pumping an oz. or two right after baby has had a feeding should give the highest-fat milk that is guaranteed to be safe for little tummy. Those can be combined in the fridge for dad’s night feeding. No further processing needed.
Edit: Just because this IS the Straight Dope, I will mention that I have accidentally made butter in my Kitchenaid Mixer with half and half (from a cow!).
“Adjustment of human milk is an established practice” - Not over here, well at least, not anywhere my wife worked, it isn’t. Prem babies (which is NOT what the OP has) need a very carefully balanced feed. If the mother can’t, or won’t, do it, then there are good commercial preparations available. Not all nurses are ignoramuses.
Babies are all different - some sleep well, and others don’t. There are many places more qualified than this, that will give you good advice on how to help them get off to sleep and sleep well.
I always worry when using fats or sugars to soothe that we are helping to program the brain into responding to fats and sugars and seeking them out when we need something soothing. Nurturing along with feeding does more than just nourish the body, it also floods the brain with natural hormones and chemicals related to feeling safe and secure which can promote sleep as well as a healthy stimuli to respond to throughout life.
Neither is her sleeping more really either. Sometime around 2-3 months, they start sleeping longer but the first month is just awful, no matter what.
Not all babies. Ours were pretty good; they woke, got fed straight from the tap, and went back to sleep. My wife got so she could practically do it in her sleep (baby was in a cot by the bed). My wife’s sister, on the other hand, did not get a full night’s sleep for the best part of a year. No reason that we could determine.
I may be totaly wrong on this but I suspect an infant who is experiencing things for the very first time responds very well to a warm, quiet, safe enviroment. I believe this floods the babies with al the right natural chemical and hormones that will relax a baby and help induce sleep. My exwife seemed to have a gift for this even with infants she baby sat for. Our chidren seemed to sleep all night from the very start and crying was almost non existent.
Well, then here’s a little breastmilk storage advice I picked up as a candystriper on maternity, that might affect choices of centrifuge materials. There was a really big sign on the refrigerator that said “Do not store breastmilk in glass containers. The antibodies stick to the sides. Use plastic containers only.”