Breast feeding

[Murrav]

How common is it for new born healthy babies to be slow at taking the breast. And how long can you allow baby to sleep and wait for the hungry child to feed.
Ther e seems to be pressure in some hospitals to be expressing and feeding with a syringe within 15 hours of the birth. My own grandchild took 4 days to get going but the hospital attitude was relaxed and be eventually got it and fed beautifully for a year.

My DD3 (born 7lbs6oz but with an infection that required strong ABs) was in the neonatal unit of a hospital with "baby-friendly" status for the first 6 days of her life. The midwives and nnu nurses encouraged me to express for her but she showed little inclination to feed as she was being tube fed via naso gastric tube and was also on a glucose drip. In the end the nnu paediatrician told the nurses to take her off the glucose so that she would get hungry, and would start feeding directly from me. She started feeding about 24 hours after the drip was taken out and has only just stopped (2.6yo).

I think that many medical staff don't really know how long a baby can go without food so they panic. I always think about the little newborns pulled alive from under earthquake rubble after 10 days- they arrive designed for survival, don't they? As long as they're healthy at birth I think the more relaxed attitude might be preferable to encouraging bottles at the first sign of a blip.

If they feed a couple of times in the first 12 hours or so, that's pretty normal IME. It should pick up after that and within a week I'd expect them to be bfing every 90 minutes to two hours. After the birth they're knackered and the first two or three days are no guide to anything. You certainly shouldn't be expressing until about three weeks.

DS didn't want to feed at all when he was born and the mws never even mentioned me trying for the first few hours. I eventually expressed and fed with the syringe at their request because he wasn't getting the hang of it when I first tried (imo because I didn't offer him the boob soon enough after the birth) but he got the hang of it with persistence by the time I left hospital and BF successfully for a year. I did think it was weird that I wasn't encouraged to feed him straightaway but I had a massive bleed delivering the placenta so think they were more concerned with getting me stable first.

My DD didn't feed until about 4 hours after delivery, as she was full of mucous due to a rapid delivery.
She didn't really feed much until she was 3 mths old. I knew she was fine, didn't make an issue of it, spoke to our local infant feeding co-ordinator who supported me as well. I'm a peer supporter myself and had already told the MWs don't call me I'll call you. Still bfing at 8 mths. I think some hospitals are too quick to offer top ups and expressing. sometimes it is needed, if there are complications but a healthy, full term baby has enough fat stores to keep them going while they get to grips with feeding. Key thing is to have lots of skin to skin and keep offering the breast.