The Breast Feeding Support Thread

kandr10

I largely agree with how strange. I do regret however not accepting a bottle of formula in hospital. My daughter was so sleepy and found it really hard to latch on. She wasn't getting enough and I couldn't express as my milk hadn't come in. She ended up needing top ups so was on the bottle anyway. I feel if I'd not been so stubborn and accepted the formula, she'd have had more energy to put into breastfeeding. I will add that I started expressing as soon as my milk came in And gave that as a top up. I kept trying to latch her on (sometimes for up to half hr with no success). Eventually after 2weeks she stopped taking the bottle. She's still exclusively breastfed now at 5 months. My husband never had any problem giving her a bottle and he puts her down every alternate night.

My point is you need to keep an open mind and if you need to give formula to help the process it's no harm and you shouldn't feel like you've failed or anything.

kknitter

Yayyy!! My LO will be 12 weeks tomorrow
Now the question, he has started sleeping for longer at nights, me being first time mom and worried, I wake him up if he goes for 4 - 4 and a half without feed. Now, should I wake him up or let him cry for feed at night before feeding him. When I do feed him he is very hungry and even in sleep latches in first go. So don't know if I will be spoiling his habit in coming months by waking him up and he would never go whole night without feed. Your thoughts will be really helpful.

Over concerned I guess.

Bagheera

I definitely wouldn't wake him at this stage! My son is 14 weeks and is showing no signs of stretching between night feeds. No way would I wake him if he did though.

Edit to add: I wouldn't go the other extreme and let him get hysterical before feeding either. Just when he wakes and starts to root/grumble I'd feed him pretty quickly.

kknitter

Thank you very much ... It's just in the night he goes for longer, during day he feeds every one and a half hour still .. I guess he compensates night feeds during day time . Appreciate your reply

red fraggle

kknitter wrote: »

Yayyy!! My LO will be 12 weeks tomorrow
Now the question, he has started sleeping for longer at nights, me being first time mom and worried, I wake him up if he goes for 4 - 4 and a half without feed. Now, should I wake him up or let him cry for feed at night before feeding him. When I do feed him he is very hungry and even in sleep latches in first go. So don't know if I will be spoiling his habit in coming months by waking him up and he would never go whole night without feed. Your thoughts will be really helpful.

Over concerned I guess.

Definitely wouldn't wake him to feed! Take the sleep when you can! 4 month growth spurt will arrive soon and mess everything up!!! Well it did for us!!

Moonbeam

Ugh survived week 1 , it is a disaster again but we will know when she is weighed on Monday .
I just need it to get easier magically and quickly and her to start piling the weight on .
Agh

kandr10

You know it will get easier moonbeam. Hang on in there :-) congrats on your new arrival .

Moonbeam

kandr10 wrote: »

You know it will get easier moonbeam. Hang on in there :-) congrats on your new arrival .

I keep telling myself it will and as this is definitely my last trying to suffer the breastfeeding as long as I can but I just keep hoping it will get easier .
I have a history of it being torture , 2 super starving babies who I never had enough milk for which would of course have to be rare and effect me and 1 that did not put on weight but sure she didn't on bottles either and then was allergic to milk ! And is still tiny at 3 .

How Strange

Moonbeam if you think you're prone to low supply then oats, fennel and fenugreek are supposed to be good for increasing it. Avoid peppermint or mint tea as it's supposed to reduce supply. The active ingredient in motilium is also supposed to be very good for boosting supply and I've known a few women who took it in the early months and some went on to feed for 2 years.

How Strange

By the way congrats moonbeam I didn't know you'd had your baby already.

Moonbeam

Yes I was told to establish feeding then get fenugeek tea and it should double supply .
It is just stressing me out at the moment , hoping when she is weighed Monday I will be told all is well

kandr10

Just keep taking it one day at a time. Don't know if you did this on your other babies but keeping a record might be helpful to see how long and how often feedings going. I found it helpful anyway especially since the brain mushes up so much after childbirth and you can't remember the good feeds from the bad ones.

How Strange

Dr Jack Newman, kellymom and Dr Sears are fantastic resources on what is biologically normal for breastfed babies. A lot of times what our health care professionals consider normal is actually from a formula feeding perspective and it's very different for a breastfed baby.

I know this is your 4th so free time is very rare but try as much as you can this weekend to get into bed, do skin to skin and fed whenever she wants to. Feeding on cue is really important in these early weeks both for the baby and the mother. Good luck

How Strange

Also, you've breastfed a newborn for a week. That's a huge achievement as it's tough going but especially with 3 other young children. I'd consider that a success not a failure. No matter what happens on Monday you've done that much and it's a fantastic start for her.
Every feed counts so definitely take it one feed at a time.

lazygal

I would also insist on weight being measured on a breastfeeding instead of formula based chart.

Soooky

kknitter wrote: »

Thank you very much ... It's just in the night he goes for longer, during day he feeds every one and a half hour still .. I guess he compensates night feeds during day time . Appreciate your reply

Sounds like he is tanking up & getting his calories in during the day kknitter - I wouldn't wake him : )

kknitter

Thank you very much soooky

Soooky

PM sent kknitter : )

Soooky

lazygal wrote: »

I would also insist on weight being measured on a breastfeeding instead of formula based chart.

When we went for our little one's 3 month check up with PHN I asked if she was using the weight chart for breastfed or formula fed babies - she told me that there was just the one chart!! Good job I know better!

The WHO weight chart for breastfed babies is on kellymom.com (can't post link as I don't have enough posts on here yet!).

My little one is bang on the average all the time which is gas : )

lazygal

I was fobbed off with my first, luckily I knew better second time and told the Phn if she didn't have the right chart the weight gain or loss data was unreliable. She said herself they should have the bf one but they don't.


Eta you're under no obligation to see the Phn if you don't want to.

cyning

Soooky wrote: »

When we went for our little one's 3 month check up with PHN I asked if she was using the weight chart for breastfed or formula fed babies - she told me that there was just the one chart!! Good job I know better

Since Jan of last year there is only one chart. All babies are plotted on a chart that only takes into account normal breastfed babies. Any babies born before that are still plotted on the old chart.

Congrats on the new baba Moonbeam

I'm still finding feeding so hard: she's 6.5 weeks I'm not new to this C definitely fed more often when she was a baby. But S has spent a week in hospital with pneumonia she's been up puking amd coughing at night and I think the combination of that and the tongue tie and the toddler would be enough to make it more difficult.

kknitter

Do you have days where baba wants to feed less? He doesn't seem to be in mood to feed today. He has had very few feeds and hence less wet nappies today. I am trying since morning but he cries if trying to feed. Don't know what might be wrong. I hope this passes soon. He is 12 weeks btw.

lazygal

I noticed a (welcome) drop in feeds at twelve weeks. They get more efficient at feeding.

How Strange

Yes, once the growth spurt is over they feed less or more quickly. It's the reward for all your hard work

Soooky

My lo is 4.5mths old now and if anything her night time feeds seem to be taking longer! She has a feed at 8pm which (with winding) takes an hour, she then wakes at 12 for another feed which can also take up to an hour, and then again at 4am for another feed, getting up time is usually 7.30am but yesterday and today she woke at 6.30am. Before this she used to go from 11pm until 4am/5am before needing a feed. Just wondering if its maybe the 4 month sleep regression or if she needs more calories as she is getting bigger? Would love some more zzzz's and seriously tempted to introduce a bottle of formula for bedtime in the hope that she will be full longer but hanging on in the hope that she will stretch her feeds out a little....

livinsane

Woke up at 5.30am to find that my almost-7 month old who was sleeping beside me had latched himself on and was supping away. If he could do this all the time, I'd be very appreciative!

How Strange

livinsane wrote: »

Woke up at 5.30am to find that my almost-7 month old who was sleeping beside me had latched himself on and was supping away. If he could do this all the time, I'd be very appreciative!

That's so cute.

How Strange

Soooky wrote: »

My lo is 4.5mths old now and if anything her night time feeds seem to be taking longer! She has a feed at 8pm which (with winding) takes an hour, she then wakes at 12 for another feed which can also take up to an hour, and then again at 4am for another feed, getting up time is usually 7.30am but yesterday and today she woke at 6.30am. Before this she used to go from 11pm until 4am/5am before needing a feed. Just wondering if its maybe the 4 month sleep regression or if she needs more calories as she is getting bigger? Would love some more zzzz's and seriously tempted to introduce a bottle of formula for bedtime in the hope that she will be full longer but hanging on in the hope that she will stretch her feeds out a little....

Soooky the 4 month sleep regression can be a killer especially if you had a great sleeper up to then. Your milk has all the calories she needs but she is going through huge physical and psychological developments at the moment and this can affect some babies. Both mine were terrible during this phase. My son used to wake at midnight and that was it for the night. My daughter used to want to play from 2-4am. I used to have to put her in the jumperoo to tire her out.

It's tempting to introduce formula but I don't think it will make much difference if they're not waking for hunger.

All I can say is that its a phase and it will pass although its hard to see that when you're in the middle of it.

How Strange

I forgot to post here during the week but on Tuesday we got to the 1 year point! This time last year I had mastitis and a hysterical baby. We had to sleep on the sofa one night so I could feed her through the night to help clear the infection. I will always call the bank holiday Monday last year Black Monday as I was in tatters. If I hadn't had mastitis I'd have given up and bought formula. I rang a fantastic woman from friends of breastfeeding and she talking me down. She text me regularly that day and evening and that support kept me going. I went to the hospital the next day, I got the latch checked and corrected, got my antibiotics and we never looked back.

Here we are, still going at 1 year. She's on 2 sippy cups of milk and 1 feed before bedtime.

Soooky

How Strange wrote: »

Soooky the 4 month sleep regression can be a killer especially if you had a great sleeper up to then. Your milk has all the calories she needs but she is going through huge physical and psychological developments at the moment and this can affect some babies. Both mine were terrible during this phase. My son used to wake at midnight and that was it for the night. My daughter used to want to play from 2-4am. I used to have to put her in the jumperoo to tire her out.

It's tempting to introduce formula but I don't think it will make much difference if they're not waking for hunger.

All I can say is that its a phase and it will pass although its hard to see that when you're in the middle of it.

Thanks for that How Strange : ) Yes I reckon it must have been either a growth spurt or the 4 month sleep regression - since yesterday she has done nothing but sleep! Had her nap yesterday morning for 1 hour and then slept for another 2.5 hr nap in the afternoon, had her last feed and then went to bed at 9pm and bar waking for a feed at 3.30am and 6.30am she slept until 10am this morning!!! Not only that but she had 2 x 2.5hr naps today!! She must be making up for lost sleep : ) Fingers crossed!!

Also, another reason for my feeling so tired - I found out I have a mild case of mastitis : ( Don't know if it was the lack of sleep and feeling run down that contributed to it, but caught it on time luckily enough! On antibiotics and anti inflammatories at the moment....

So there is no way I can put lo on a bottle of formula and reduce feeds now if I want to clear the mastitis - must be a sign to keep going : )))))

Hope you are all enjoying the bank holiday weekend and enjoying your babies : )