The Breast Feeding Support Thread

Spotty's post is spot on. It's not unfair to say it how it is - spacing breastfed feeds when a baby needs to feed often is making a baby go hungry. It's just saying it how it is. I'd rather someone be direct and upfront with me if I were in that position rather than than not giving me the full facts. Breastmilk is digested really quickly which is why a breastfed baby may want the boob after a short amount of time.

I don't think spotty is suggesting that the poster wants her baby to go hungry - she's just saying that by implementing a feeding routine that is not on demand then you will end up making your baby go hungry. This is important for people to know because so many people think the norm is that you feed at intervals which is based on formula feeding advice, and is not how breastfeeding works.

guideanna wrote: »

Hi all,
My baby is just over a month old. I'm ebf and so far it's going well.
Ive been feeding on demand up to now but I really want to start spacing out feeds and trying to establish some kind of routine or at least have a couple of hours between feeds so I can just start to feel more like me again.
Sometimes it get 4hours...sometimes baby wants back on after 15 minutes since lst feed ended...it can be exhausting.
My milk is well established i have really good supply and baby is piling the weight on so basically my Q is has anyone worked out a scheduled feeding plan or how l By should I be trying for between feeds.
Thinking of starting on 2 hours minimum and going from there?

I exclusively breast fed my baby till 6 months in a routine so it can be done! Its not everyones cup of tea but it can work. I followed Gina Fords plan (Yes i know a lot of people hate her but it worked great for me) I used to feed at around 6, 10, 14, 16 , 17:30 and a top up at 19:00 then i would always wake her for a feed at 22:00. That was when she was quite young now. But i folllowed her plan to a T and she has always been a great routine baby and at 2 she still is. I would recommend the contented little baby book. One thing you have to be sure is that every feed is a really good feed. I used to strip my baby down to her nappy so she was grand and alert for a feed and not too sleepy, was great for the skin to skin bond!! Then make sure i always got to the hind milk, i used to just squeeze a bit out when she would latch off and if it was creamy i would know. I always made sure to start on the boob i finished off last on too. It can be done. We got on great now but she was always a great feeder from day one so id say that helped too.

like I said its not everyone's cup of tea but it worked for me. I exclusively breast fed for six months without as much as a hiccup.

I thought I'd check back in to let people know how the bfeeding is going. My little girl was 3 weeks old last sat and when she was about 3 days old, I was posting here about the sheer pain in feeding her. She doesn't seem to be tongue tied but was just very aggressive and bit when feeding. I very nearly gave up but I bought nipple shields and they saved me. I've now dropped the shields and she's latching directly to nipple with very little/no pain. She unfortunately wasn't gaining weight at all so I had to top her up on formula but I've also dropped that now and if she continues to put up weight just from my milk, I can continue breastfeeding as planned. Thanks to everyone who helped me a few weeks back.. I genuinely thought I'd have to stop bfeeding so I'm very grateful for the support to keep going.

Well done great news. You wont regret it in fact the hardest decision will be when to stop!!

yellow hen wrote: »

I thought I'd check back in to let people know how the bfeeding is going. My little girl was 3 weeks old last sat and when she was about 3 days old, I was posting here about the sheer pain in feeding her. She doesn't seem to be tongue tied but was just very aggressive and bit when feeding. I very nearly gave up but I bought nipple shields and they saved me. I've now dropped the shields and she's latching directly to nipple with very little/no pain. She unfortunately wasn't gaining weight at all so I had to top her up on formula but I've also dropped that now and if she continues to put up weight just from my milk, I can continue breastfeeding as planned. Thanks to everyone who helped me a few weeks back.. I genuinely thought I'd have to stop bfeeding so I'm very grateful for the support to keep going.

Yellow hen that's great news. It can be so hard at the start but so worth it in the long run. Feeding a nearly 11 month old here and the first few months were horrendous but it really was worth all the pain!!

That's great news Yellow Hen. Glad it's working out for you :-)

BusyIzzy wrote: »

My little one is feeding on demand and actually has her own 2.5 hr to 3 hr routine.I wouldn't really push a new baby to four hours mind you but that's a different thing again.


Having said all that, I'm really not enjoying breastfeeding, personally.She's only three weeks and she's feeding fine, but I'm getting stressed by the total dependency of it, and the amount of time it's taking every day, and how it's only me that can ever seem to do anything for her.And if I'm honest-the leaking breasts, the bras, the tops, the whole thing.I have another child too and I just feel totally awful about the whole thing right now and ready to give up.

I know it's not really right to say you hate it for those kind of reasons, especially when the actual feeding is easy for me, but I'm so tired and fed up now, I no longer care that much what people think...... :-(

The total dependency of it is a lot to take at the start. I felt overwhelmed that someone was completely dependent on me for food. All I can say is, the leaking, the soreness, the constant feeding; they do all go away in the next few weeks. There is a growth spurt around now and another at 6 weeks - then things settle allot. Take a look at this link - I hate this site generally but this info is really helpful. http://www.thealphaparent.com/2011/12/timeline-of-breastfed-baby.html

Couchkitten wrote: »

Well done Yellow hen. Fair play to you for persevering. Isn't it just a disgrace that you got more support online than in a maternity hospital! Drives me mad. I was also googling from my hospital bed and if people on groups on Facebook or boards like these hadn't given me should great information I would not have continued to feed.

Absolutely. On my first baby I received very bad advice in hospital and from the community midwife (I only know it now to have been bad) and it was by reading this entire thread, during first few nights of my baby's life, that we were able to push through and keep feeding.

I think my little man is going through the 6 week growth spurt, he's feeding more the last 48 hours and is rarely out of my arms for most of the day (he's finally gone down for a nap just now). Will all this feeding actually settle down around the 6 week mark or will I still be glued to the couch this time next week? Also will the fullness in my breasts and leaking begin to subside? By the time I feed him in the morning (around 6am) they're quite sore and makes it difficult to feed him.

Yes it's hard.Hollymartins, I'm three weeks behind you, but I've the same feeling after a stretch without a feed.It's awful.
I just have this helpless feeling that'll I'll be totally tied to this baby for the next six months, unable to do anything or go anywhere by myself or with OH-even just down the road to the shop after they're in bed or something .I don't think I can handle that.But I'm really torturing myself with guilt over potentially giving her formula at some point.Which is silly in a way, because my oldest was mostly formula fed and is just fine.
I hope something amazing happens at six weeks tbh.
And equally I know I'm being silly because it is going well in terms of the actual feeding, I'm just not that happy with the whole situation-I feel trapped.

hollymartins wrote: »

I know how you feel. At the three week mark I almost gave up as it just felt all I was doing was feeding but I decided to set myself shorter goals - for example I'd keep going til four weeks then see how I felt. That helped me get through and now I'm at the six week mark, there's still days when it feels relentless but they pass.

The other evening my husband came home from work, baby had just fed and we needed milk so I jumped at the chance to walk to the corner shop while my husband stayed with the baby. I was only gone ten minutes but it was probably the longest I've been away from the baby since he was born. I plan to start expressing milk this weekend so that our parents can babysit and feed him for a few hours while we go out for dinner or the cinema and I'm no longer tied to him.

Is there anything I should look out for when I start to express? Any tips are welcome

Can't give u any advice on expressing as I didn't do it much (I hated it). But have a look on you tube at paced bottle feeding for giving your little one the bottle. And show it to whoever might be giving your little one a bottle. It's just different to the traditional way of giving a bottle.
6 weeks is great going and it should only get easier by the day now.

i used to pump every morning after I fed the baby 2oz from each boob. and I used to pump in the evening at around 21:00 and i used to get around 6oz 3 from each side. It was great I built up a huge supply in the freezer it meant my husband could give a bottle of expressed milk at 22:00 so I could go up to bed early and wouldnt have to feed again usually till around 4am or so so it meant i got a longer period of sleep. It also meant when i had to go back to work my baby still got a few weeks of breast milk as by that stage she was only on three feeds a day and i had plenty of milk in the freezer. I used the medela mini electric found it great!

rainbow kirby wrote: »

MiniKirby is 5 weeks old, exclusively breastfed and has a HUGE appetite. He's still doing some serious cluster feeding every evening and doesn't really go more than 3 hours at any time without a feed, even overnight. We had a bit of a rough start - I had to supplement with formula when he went back into hospital at 3 days old with jaundice and low blood sugar, and he decided he liked the bottle a bit too much at that stage. It took a lot of work to get him back on the boob. I'm a bit wary of letting him near a bottle any time soon because of our experience in the early days, but I need to be able to leave the baby with my husband and a bottle of breast milk at some stage...

At that stage it is constant feeding. Once I accepted that I had to sit under them for hours at a time it made life easier. My first got bottles of formula after a week because of weight loss and me being a bit clueless and that worked fine. Not to scare you but my second refused all bottles, be they expressed milk, formula or a mix, and different bottles and teats. It seems endless at the time and I was quite frustrated but I kept at it and by 12 weeks he definitely settled a bit more between feeds.
When I needed an hour away from him my husband would stick him in the pram or the car and he'd usually fall asleep for a bit so feeding wouldn't be a problem. Those early days are so tiring.

So last week my baby was constantly feeding but as he was 6 weeks I thought this was the growth spurt that everyone mentions. I thought his feeding had stabilised by the end of the week but over the last few days he's back to being constantly hungry and crying every time I try to put him down. Is this still the growth spurt or is he just going to be like this for another few weeks? I expressed milk yesterday and my husband was able to feed him but today I haven't had any time to do it. It's disappointing as I thought I'd be able to express and then have some respite but I can't see that happening.

So many people from my friends to my doctor and PHN have said it gets easier once he hits the 6 weeks mark so for him to still be as hungry as ever is pretty disheartening especially when I read for some people it didn't get easier until their baby was a few months old.