Apologies in advance for the upcoming rant/tale of woe but I am nearing the limits of my sanity.
My lovely wee DS is 7 weeks old today. He was very jaundiced after birth and had to be woken every 3 hours to feed. He was so lethargic that BFing just wouldn't work and after he lost 13% of his birth weight I gave him expressed milk plus formula at the midwives' advice. When we were able to go home 5 days after his birth I continued feeding him every 3 hours with expressed milk and formula top ups and as the days went on he started to wake and ask for milk himself, which was great. During this time I also offered the breast and eventually he took to it. Now he is breastfed by me and gets two bottles a day from DH (one so I can get a few hours uninterrupted sleep and the other while I express for that feed).
But as the weeks have gone by his feedings have gotten closer together. He has always taken a good while to feed (45 mins to 1.5 hours is standard). The longest we'll get between feeds is 1-1.5 hours but he has also been cluster feeding these past 2 weeks in the evening (5-10 or 11). Today he has cluster fed from 2pm until now (10pm) and is still going. During his cluster feeds he pulls on and off the breast, gets very agitated and screams with the breast in his mouth, continues to scream if I take it away and launches himself back at it. After many hours feeding he'll still be bobbing and rooting on me.
He is gaining weight really well (put on 14oz between weeks 4 and 5) and is now off the chart for length so I don't necessarily think it's a supply issue. He also has completely stopped agreeing to lie in his Sleepy head except after a huge cluster feed when he's exhausted (if I'm lucky). Generally he just wants to sleep on me.
The health visitor says it's all normal but none of my BFing friends have been through this. Can anyone offer any advice? Is this normal? I'm desperate and not enjoying feeding my lovely boy at all, which is awful.
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Infant feeding
7 week old DS, so close to stopping BF
17 replies
AgentCooper · 19/11/2017 22:16
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