Hello, I have a 9-day-old baby who I have been exclusively breastfeeding on demand apart from top ups on his first day when his blood sugar was too low at birth. Since then he has, I think, been feeding well - latching on without problem and enthusiastically swallowing, feeding about every 1-2 hours with the longest gap between feeds being a bit over 2 hours and that's about once a day. But his weight gain has been slow - he weighed 3260g at birth and lost 13% of birth weight at day 5 but the midwives thought he was perhaps just turning a corner so let me carry on as I was doing and the next day he'd put on 30g, but 3 days after that (ie today) he'd only gained another 10.
The midwives were happy enough that there was a gain, and he is otherwise well, lots of wet and dirty nappies a day, periods of alertness, but suggested I offer a top up of about 20g twice a day after he's fed on the breast.
I just want to do what's best for him and have nothing against formula - it sustained my first baby (who I now realise was a poor feeder) - but I really don't want to find that my supply is affected so that I end up giving more and more formula and then giving up breastfeeding, as this is what happened with my first baby. The few times he did have a formula top up at the start he was sick. The midwife said that my supply shouldn't be affected if I offer after the breastfeed and that it might stretch his stomach a bit so he takes more breastmilk. But wouldn't it also lead to him possibly feeding less frequently and my supply being affected in that way?
Does anyone have any tips as to how I could introduce the top ups without them affecting my supply, so that I can revert back to exclusively breastfeeding once the baby has gained more weight? I've tried expressing and pumping but I get hardly anything out,
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Infant feeding
Can I top up without affecting supply?
15 replies
Secondsop · 01/06/2014 13:10
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