Concerned 7 week dd not ever getting full feed

[pinkpolkadot]

Hi, I would really appreciate any advice or reassurance on this pls.

Dd is 7 weeks and ebf. After a slow start we have got on well with breastfeeding and she seems content and lots of poos and wee's. The thing is she just doesn't seem to be getting much bigger and I'm getting concerned/paranoid!

She was 7,7 at birth and lost a bit by day 10 but had regained and was 7,8 at 2 weeks. I got her weighed at 6 weeks and she was 8,9.

The thing is she never seems to feed for long, maybe has 5 mins of good rhythmic sucking before pulling off and using the nipple as a dummy and loudly sucking the end. If I try to re latch she just pulls on and off.

I have had latch and positioning checked and both fine, she just doesn't seem to stay in long. I think she takes enough to get her off to sleep and then gives up but I'm worried she never gets a full feed and isn't growing enough. People keep commenting how tiny she is and I hate it.

She feeds a lot during the day, maybe 8 times although to be honest is happiest at the breast and would graze / cluster all day if she could.

Am I being unduly concerned? What can I do to get her to stay on longer?

Thanks

Not sure why this would be a concern - she was on the 25th centile at 2 weeks and is now between the 25th and the 9th and this is within normal. You say she is happy and developing normally, and feeds a lot, for short times. This is normal.

If you think she needs more milk, then you can offer more often, and switch sides so she has one or more 'visits' to each breast on most occasions. She can feed more often at night, too.

But none of this might be necessary :)

It's frequency of feeding, not length of time on the breast, that drives supply and intake.

Are the clinic happy with her progress?

Thanks tiktok, she just seems small compared to loads of other babies her age and I get comments from every tom dick and harry about how tiny she is. After enough comments just can't help wondering if they are right and I'm nit giving her enough. Prob just the lack of sleep paranoia kicking in!

Clinic were happy at the 6 week weigh in, not going back till 10 weeks as per the 4 week policy here.

Thanks for your reply, feel better now. Will just keep going!

Well, she is smaller than most babies her age - but there's nothing inherently wrong or worrisome about that. She is on or about the 15th centile - so 14 babies in every 100 are smaller and 85 babies in every 100 are bigger. So what? :)

She sounds just like my dd2, now 15 weeks. Feeds almost never go more than 10 mins and often nearer 5, she still feeds every 2 or so hours (at night too unfortunately). She also dropped her line slightly from 75tg to 50th over the first 8 weeks. I haven't had her weighed since as I can see she's healthy & happy. She only feeds off one breast each feed and if the feed is short I'll put her back on the same one for her next feed. I just think they are all different, dd1 could spend up to 40mins feeding so a quick feeder was new to me.

Breastfed babies are usually smaller than formula fed babies anyway but that's not because the breastfed babies are smaller than they should be.

You baby's feeding sounds perfect to me and as long as she's healthy (which she clearly is) and doing normal nappies you really shouldn't worry. Don't try to get her to take more because you'll never succeed and just end up getting frustrated. I think one of the best things about bfing is that you don't know how much they've taken and can't sit there trying to coax them into drinking that last ounce. They get exactly what they need exactly when they need it.

Just accept the excuse she's giving you to spend lots of your day sitting cuddling her and enjoy!

DS2 is 3.5mths now but he was exactly the same birth weight so I had a look in his book to see how his weight gain has compared to your DDs and there's not much in it.

He's also EBF and was 7,7 at birth. He lost a lot more weight and went down to 6,14 but was back to 7,2 after 2 wks. By 6wks, he had gained rapidly and was up to 8,13. Haven't had him weighed for a while but was 11lbs at 11wks and is generally bobbing somewhere between the 25th and 9th centiles in the book. Nobody has ever suggested that this is a problem and the HVs are happy with him.

Just go with what your DD wants. As you can see, she's not unusual in her size!

Al1son - what you say is correct, but only after the first six months. Breastfed babies tend to grow as quickly/slightly more quickly than ff babies in the first months.

The OP's baby is 7 weeks.

You might just have to develop a thick skin about the tiny comments. We got them loads when DD was a newborn and I got very anxious because she was tiny (between 2nd and 9th centile up to 6m).

But at 10m she is on the 50th centile and I am still getting people telling me she is tiny! So I have realised that commenting on baby size is like commenting on bump size and people just say any old thing that comes into their heads.

DH used to just give people a bemused look when they commented and say "of course she's tiny, she's a baby".