Little sucks at end of feed: drinking hind milk?

[delilah88]

HV told me that the little sleepy butterfly-sucks at the end of a feed are when the baby is drinking the hindmilk. I found that useful as I had assumed this was just my baby dropping off to sleep or comfort sucking and sometimes un-latched her. So today I let her stay on. The only thing is this prolongs the feed, usually about 10-15 mins to around 30-45 mins! Is this normal for a 3 month old?

[delilah88]

bump.

[MonaLotte]

I thought it was for comfort too! That does sound a long time for feeds at that ages. Hopefully someone with more expertise will be along soon.

[CitrusyOne]

DD is three months, I was also told this by lactation consultant. Most of the time I just let her feed as long as she wants to. Sometimes she'll do the sleepy hind milk sucks and stay on for ages, other times she's done much quicker and doesn't. I just go with the flow, and make sure there's something good on telly when I'm there for the long haul!

[shouldIbecrossaboutthis]

I thought there was foremilk and hind milk in every drop, it doesn't just change to foremilk 12 minutes in?

If she is still drinking it then she must need it? My DS is 3.5 months and feeds for 10-15 minutes if that matters, but obviously they are all different so I don't think there is a 'normal'?

[HabitualLurker]

My 4 month old does this too. I thought it was a stimulation suck to trigger a let-down? Not from anything I've been told, but just from experience. Sometimes he just gulps down and unlatches himself straight away. Other times he'll stay on after the gulping stops and switches to the fluttery sucking and a let-down will be triggered every 10 mins or so and he'll gulp for a minute or so. So assume they do this if they still want milk. Could be wrong though!

[CitrusyOne]

I have also read that the fore milk/hind milk thing is only a theory?

Lurker, now I think about it that happens with DD too.....

Who knows- I've learnt in the last 13 weeks that much of parenting a newborn is guesswork, and nobody REALLY knows why this happens that way etc.