breastfeeding every hour

[mamma1mia]

Hi, I am a first time mum and am after some advice from more experienced mummies! My nine week old little one has always been a hungry baby but still feeds every hour/ hour and a half during the day. I just want to see if this is normal and when she might go longer between feeds. Is it a comfort thing?

Babies vary wildly, but feeds tend to settle down around 8-12 weeks.

At 9 weeks it probably is a comfort thing - the world is a big scary place for a tiny baby and it's not surprising they need comfort. :)

Are you having any problems at all - sore nipples etc? A bad latch can cause inefficient feeding but this normally causes other symptoms like soreness, etc.

Congratulations and well done you for choosing to breastfeed.

I agree that comfort is a good thing and nothing to get worried about, but every hour is pretty frequent for a nine week old and if she really is feeding all that time (ie she is awake and you can hear her swallowing) then she almost certainly needs the milk.

There could be lots of reasons, it could be an inefficient latch (which might easily be painless btw). A breastfeeding counsellor should be able to help you work through the different possibilities.

But in general, yes as they get older they do become more efficient feeders and space their feeds out more often.

DD was feeding every 2 hours by 8week's. But it varries huagly. She had been feeding every hour initialy, and feed's where taking 40-50minutes so felt like I was constenlty feeding for they first couple of months.

They gradualy got shorter and more spaced appart, but she fed every 2hours during the day for the first 8 months.

Hears some more info on frequent feeding you mite find usefull
www.kellymom.com/bf/normal/frequent-nursing.html

My DD was still feeding as frequent as this at week 8. Now 19 weeks she feeds every 2 - 2.5 hours. Is she actually drinking for the full feed? If she is feeding for only some of the time you could try breast compression to try and make her drink for longer. Otherwise, I would just continue to feed on demand. Well done!

my DS is 14 weeks and has gradually built up to 3 hour gaps in the middle of the day, but feeds roughly hourly from about 4 to 7pm, and also in the mornings

the feeds are much much quicker now, though, 10-15 mins, so it doesn't feel anywhere near like the constant feeding at the beginning. I am still often in disbelief that he's hungry AGAIN!

Really started spacing out more over the last few weeks. Have really noticed that he is much more effective at feeding now, which is great at night, because he still wakes up quite frequently (2 or 3 times at least)

I had the same thing with DD and my HV advised that I space her feeds out to 2 hours, 3 ideally so as to give my boobs time to "recharge", making the milk she would get at each feed more filling. Tried to distract her with walks in the sling and music to get her to 2 hours and after the first day she is now 1.5-2 hourly, sometimes even 3 and I am feeling much less tired. She also pointed out that never being totally empty would make DD unused to the feeling and so crying when she was even a bit less than full. This also stopped her green poos and tummy aches!