Help! BF advice needed.

[damnitdamnit]

my friend had a baby yesterday at 7.30am, since then she says he has not fed from her at all really. She said he will latch on and two sucks and thats it. He falls asleep and she can not wake him or gets really annoyed and starts crying.

She stayed in hospital till tea time last night and the midwife said all was ok ie right position, and to keep trying. Midwife has been round today and gave her tips like skin to skin waking him up before hand and she has tried this all day but still not made any progress. Midwife has arranged some BF support to ring tomorrow but was not concerned.

So i was wondering if she should be worried? any other suggestions? Your help would be great.

ohh i am also going to get her to look at this thread tonight if she can so i dont keep ringing her with info.

did she have a spinal or epidural? I had emcs with spinal and dd was very sleepy and hardly fed in the first 48 hours. Probably wasn't the best start to our bfing but we're doing ok now 12 weeks on. I'm sure someone more knowledgable will be along soon but I guess she should try to feed any time baby is awake and try not to go more than 3 hours between feeds. She could also try to express and syringe feed. Would suggest hand expression at this early stage as she is unlikely to get much from a pump. HTH

Thanks for your reply no she didn't have a spinal or epidural. Would she get much from expressing if her milk is not come in yet?

I have rand and they are watching the thread and might join if responses are needed.

oops i meant rang

i think it's ok for them to not feed for the first 24 hours or so, but much longer and they'll start wanting to check blood sugars and stuff

has he fed at all? even just a tiny bit?

If i were her i would get snuggled up in bed with the baby, both of them naked and just keep him by the breast. either try some biological nurturing which can work really very well with a reluctant feeder, or just try and latch him on every single time he stirs.

good she has some BF support ready

hi im the person that damnitdamnit is talking about, he has fed but only has a couple of sucks then gets upset or falls asleep, i will tre the snuggle approach 2night to see if that helps.
thanks for the advice.

I had this with both my dc - they just refused to feed. With ds1 it went badly wrong and led to a downward spiral, which took ages to get out of.

With ds2 I had my sister there to support me. She sat next to me and we put ds2 to the breast again, and again, and again until he had a proper feed. It took a good 3 hours before he managed it.

But after that he totally perked up and started feeding properly every two hours (though he still didn't demand feeding for a few more days).

Hi, I went through something very similar with my little girl and got lots of help and reassurance on here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/982479-Very-new-sleepy-baby-not-feeding

An update. He has fed twice now so she feels much happier. Thank you for the replies.