Night time feeding struggles as a new parent

As a new mom, I had no clue how to handle night time feedings.  Baby cries, so you just get up to feed her.  Right?  Well, that's what I thought you do, but for some reason that's not what I did.  I blame my husband.  He's fun to blame things on!  Here's our night time feeding routine for the first month (and boy did this make for a looong month!):

Baby girl cries at midnight.  I take her into the nursery (she sleeps in our room), turn the light on (crazy, right?!), sit on the futon, whip out my boob, and she eats for 15 minutes.  I then burp her and change her diaper.  (You are probably wondering why I changed her diaper.  Yeah, me too.).  She'd then spit up a little on herself, so I'd change her outfit....because I'm OCD like that.  She's then hungry again because she, you know, puked up a fourth of what she just ate.  I pray she doesn't spit up again, she falls asleep, and then I put her back in her bassinet.  Whole process takes about 45 minutes to one hour.  Multiple this by 3 and you have a crazy long night.  My husband would help out with the feedings, so I didn't have to do them all by myself (I had to pump from day one, so he gave her bottles....more on that later). 

One night during C's fourth week, as I was struggling to keep my poor brown eyes open, I had a brillz idea, yo: "Why don't I just feed her here in our bedroom and then put her straight back to bed?!  No diaper changes!  And a little spit up won't offend her boyfriend, Mr. Seahorse!"  So that's what I did.  It took 20 minutes.  It was glorious.

The next morning my husband asked if I changed her diaper during the feeding, and I proudly told him no.  I thought he'd be all proud of me too, but he was actually kind of mad.  Being a brand new dad, he was still doing everything by the book.  I was throwing that old, tired book out the window because it was making me, well, old and tired!  I explained that a lot breastfeeding moms use the co-sleepers that attach to the bed, so when baby wakes up hungry they just roll over, whip it out, and nurse.  Then back to sleep they go.  So how do they change a diaper in the middle of the night?  They don't!  He came around to my way of thinking real fast--like the next day.

After changing our feeding routine, nights became pretty wonderful.  It's okay to let a little bum wear the same little diaper for six hours, and a little spit up has never hurt anyone.  Well, I take that back.  It still makes me emotional.  But that's another story!