new baby feeding hourly - how long will it last?

[MyThumbsHaveGoneWeird]

baby 5 days old tonight. last 48 hrs since milk came in has been feeding about 20 mins every hour. dont mind, but getting pretty sleep deprived and shows no sign of slowing down. thanks for your words of experience!

About 2 weeks - longer if you're very unlucky but it will be over by 6 weeks - he's only building the supply up and then it will all settle down.

Congratulations!

Thanks! Wow, 2 weeks?? I really need to learn to feed lying down, but have only managed it so far when the midwives in the hospital helped him latch on.

Congratulations!
My dd was the same, should start to space out to 2 hourly by 2 weeks. All good for supply, make sure your nipples don't get sore!

Congratulations!

My last one fed every 1.5 hours for months but and its a big but you do learn over time to barely wake and feed. I kept the cot by the bed, had a small night light so didn't need to turn on any bright light, I wore PJ's and socks/ kept the house warm/ had a fleece by the bed to keep warm, lifted DS, feed, burped, lay DS back down, we slept. I never mastered feeding lying down and I BF for 6months.

It was fine so long as my DH didn't speak. I fed in a semi daze and fell straight back to sleep when my head hit the pillow.

On the other side of the coin my sisters twins were BF and ended up going 8 - 12 hours a night from really early on.

Took me a while to get the hang of lying down to feed but worth it. It does get easier as they get bigger (feeding lying down that is). Recommend having a pillow behind you to prop you up as you have to be at a slight angle ( feeding boob slightly more forward than other boob).

Bf does get easier I promise.

Thanks for the encouragement. We are currently having our first non-painful feed, which is such a relief, hope I can get this latch again. poppydog10 do you mean you feed with top boob or bottom? in hosp we did it a few times with bottom, but when i tried myself he just got cross, same for rugby ball hold.

Mythumbs - I feed with the bottom boob. We cosleep and she feeds throughout the night so sometimes the top one gets full, and I need to turn over and swap places with dh to feed with that one. Occasinally I can feed from the top one if I'm feeling lazy and can be bothered to switch places iykwim. So it is possible to feed from the top one.

We are cosleeping too, but at the moment I have to sit in a chair to feed. Will try again tonight. He looks like he is in right position but just licks and mouthsubbb and doesn't latch then starts getting cross. I have size 36 h boobs at moment so don't know if they need more support somehow

Mine fed every 2 hours for 6 months.

Don't forget their tummies are tiny.

My DD also still feeds every 2 hours at 5.5 months.
She was sometimes still feeding hourly on occasion at 4 months. That being said the feeds did become much shorter i.e. from up to an hour to 10 mins or so.

Some babies like some adults like to eat little and often instead of 4 or 5 big meals.

Hi,

Congratulations on your new arrival. Don't lose heart, as others have said this is completely normal BF behaviour! But I would add, the 'how long' answer depends on a whole lot of things and if you're finding it tiring, I would try getting hold of a BF counsellor (but might have to be after Xmas I imagine!)

My experience was (with big babies though) that they only fed every hour in short bursts (eg 24-48 hour periods) when they wanted to 'up' the supply - and this is really common right at the start of BF, and at different periods afterwards. I think it depends on how big your baby is, how big their stomach is, how much you just let them feed. The standard advice is to let them get on with it, because they are doing this precisely to build up your supply - the more they feed, the more milk you produce. If you try and space it out at this stage, it will go on for longer because they need the amount they need IYSWIM.

People sometimes call these manic feeding periods 'frequency days' or 'growth spurts'. There's lots of posts on MN about it, or look at the Kellymom website which is useful.

Some babies just feed at this rate all the time though - the best thing is to adjust to it when they're little: it will settle down eventually. It's easier if you've got someone looking after you, and you can just take to bed with them!

You can ask your community midwives to help you try feeding lying down at home. It's good to have someone to help you arrange pillows etc. Our midwife team has a nursery nurse who specialises in bf help - she taught me. If you ask they may have someone they can send out.

It does take a while to get the hang of lying down to feed but it'll save your sanity if you can get the hang of it. It gets easier as the LO gets older as they can support/move their head more.

Thanks for all your help. We still dont have a pattern really, but it is more like 2hourly than 1 hourly now, which is SO much more do-able.