Hi LIlly.
She does seem a little more settled when I give her a little formula. I think my supply has increased, I seem to have more when I wake up in the morning.
I have noticed that she takes around 10 to 15 minutes to drink 1 fl oz from a bottle, and doesn't find it as easy as babies usually do. I think what Cory said earlier about hypotonia around the mouth sounds like a possibility. I have a ds with autism and hypotonia, and he had similar problems, so could be hereditary.
Got to go, kids are calling!
Thanks for your help.

how are things going now?

What I found with ds1 and ds2 who were both sleepy was that the end of the feed was the best time to give a top up, as they seemed to be able to drink from a bottle when virtually asleep (which they couldn't do at all from the breast).

With ds1 we developed a complex rigmarole of waking him up through feeds - first thing was to offer a feed as soon as he squawked, so at his most awake. Within 2-3 minutes he would be asleep, so I would switch sides lots (so he was always getting the most easily accessible milk to wake him up). After another 3-4 mins, I would take ALL his clothes off, which would wake him up enough to take a bit more, then I would lie him down on the changing mat, where the cold would wake him up for a few more minutes. Finally I would flick cold water at him! But it was the ONLY way to get him to take any decent amount of breast milk because what he really wanted to do was to sleep.

We also had to set alarm clocks through the night, because he would quite happily sleep 8-10 hours as a newborn, which was not good! I think everyone thought we were mad, to wake up a baby in the night, but he needed the milk

Interestingly, he is still not a good eater, at 8 yrs old - he is by far the fussiest of my 3, and is the least interested in food.

I had to top up my DS when he went from 7lb6.5 at birth to 6lb8 at 20 days despite my best efforts.

Will link to my thread but I topped up with FF to start with and replaced it with EBM when I could, after about 3 weeks all top ups were EBM, off the bottles at 8 weeks and still feeding now at nearly 11mo

heres my thread from January

squashi - I can certainly see why there is concern.

The risk with babies who are difficult to feed is that they get progressively worse - they don;t take in sufficient calories to have the energy to feed. This is why formula may be needed to break that vicious circle - unless the mother is brilliant at expressing and gets good quantities which of course can be used instead. Often, the expressing is not that great as supply is down - so formula becomes an urgent necessity. When to give the formula is a judgement - before the feed at least ensures the baby gets it (and doesn't fall asleep before it's offered); after the feed is better at protecting the milk supply. Sometimes, one option is in the middle of the feed.

With a baby who's compromised like this, deciding what to do has to be done with the doctor's input - I get a bit twitchy when I see people on talk boards telling mothers they don't know to do something different from what the doc has said (unless the doc has said something clearly wrong!) .

Doctors do sometimes get it wrong and not all are aware of breastfeeding issues, but they can at least assess the state of the baby - you can certainly discuss other options with the doctor, of course you can, but on what you have said here, I agree doing nothing's not an option.

I agree a breastfeeding counsellor might help, too, and a proper paed assessment to check there is no other reason for her poor feeding.

Hope things get better.

It's the sleepiness and lack of energy to cry that would concern me. Dd was like that, and I did find out (many years afterwards) that it would have been her hypotonia that made her too weak to feed.

Can you get a RL breastfeeding counsellor to come and see you? Our local hospital had a brilliant counsellor who gave lots of support.

Breast first before topping up would seem the way to go anyway.

Hi everyone thanks for all the messages!
Wow Lily, yhat is really inspiring and very helpful to hear about you bf career.I think I need more of a routine for expressing,my new lactaline is arriving today which should make expressing easier.
Tiktok, shall answer your ques:
Birthweight:3450
After 2 weeks:3455
At 3 weeks:3450
At 4 weeks: 3220
She developed jaundice at2 days old, stilll has a yellow tinge. She is not a good feeder, and it is difficult to get her latched on, she often slips.
She has always been a sleepy baby and very difficult to wake for deeds and difficult to keep her awake.
She has grown longer, out of newborn and now in 0_3 months size, but I dnt knoe her length in cm.
She feeds 10 times in 24 hours, I offer her both sides and often switch nurse, but she does refuse sometimes, and appears to eat alot less than my other dc ever did. For example after feeding at 3am, she will refuse at 7am and it will take ntill 10 am to persuade her. Last night she took a last feed at 4am, and am feeding her now, having started trying at 7.30.
She is quite unsettled during the day, and since she has had formua supplements, has 'woken up', and wants to feed all day, and was attached to me all of yesterday. I think she didn't have the energy to cry before .
She was weighed on digital scales and was naked.

squashimodo - come back - has any of this helped you?

(Just realised those threads I linked to were started when I was in my 'old' name).

Hi Squashimodo. I am in exactly your situation only 2 weeks on. My dd also lost a pound in weight and I have been mixed feeding. My heart sank when I was told to top up because I thought that dd would 'give up' the breast and prefer the bottle. However she is now six weeks and she is still excepting both. I have read other people's replies with interest.
I have a 3 year old who has been quite poorly over the last 4 weeks so I can not stay in bed and breast feed or spend too much time expressing. I am just carrying on and seeing where it leads. My moto now is 'one day at a time' and 'each day she is getting a little bit more breastmilk'.

I guess what I am saying is don't give up, your milk won't disappear if you put her on your breast first before feeds and if you have the time and opportunity you will be able to increase it as proven by LilyBelero and tiktok. Good luck