Newborn bf baby still losing weight. Please reassure me.

[tiredandgrumpy]

Dd is 2 weeks old. She has now been weighed 3 times since her birth and on each occasion her weight has dropped a little more. She's lost about 14% of her birthweight. I am bf her and want to keep it exclusively this way. The midwives are now on the case and I am getting daily visits to 'reassure' me and check I'm not doing anything wrong.

This is dc3. I have successfully bf my other 2. Dd and I are both well (paed check gave her the all clear on Monday), yet I'm now starting to get paranoid. I wish the midwife visits were less frequent - the pressure is really upsetting me and today I'm just looking at dd, imagining that she's wasting away.

She is a sleepy baby and I am struggling to make sure that she stays awake to feed properly rather than comfort sucking, however I am never denying her a feed and she's pooing and weeing fine. My latch has been checked and I am producing enough milk. I'm eating and drinking plenty and am taking things easy.

I've been trying to call La Leche this morning, but get no reply.

Please can someone give me some reassurance that my beautiful dd is ok and that some babies do just take a little longer for their weight to settle down.

How often is she feeding?

roughly every 2-3 hours. She doesn't nap for longer than 2-3 hours at the mo (most of the the time far less) and the rest of the time she's offered the boob. Proper feeding rarely lasts longer than 5-10 mins before she dozes off, so I take her off and wait for her to seem hungry again (5-10 mins).

tiredandgrumpy - I can understand your concern.

The overwhelming reason for babies not gaining weight - and 14 per cent below bw at 2 weeks is deffo something to sit up and take notice of - is the baby is not getting enough milk. She may be sleepy because she is conserving energy - which exacerbates the situation.

Daily visits from midwives are no help unless they give you some ways of improving things.

So - how can we get more milk into your baby? :)

• feed more often - 2-3 hourly is probably not nearly enough, so she may need lots of cuddling and holding, inc skin to skin, to stimulate her to feed more often and so you can respond to any feeding cue she makes switch nursing - this means going from side to side frequently, so as soon as she slows down sucking on one breast, switch her to the other and then back to the first one and so on. Avoid any daft notion of keeping her on one side only 'to get the hindmilk' - it's volume* of milk that counts and switch nursing increases volume
• breast compression (google it) which you can do pre-switch each time to encourage your baby to stat sucking again
• expressing and offering the ebm in a bottle if she stops bf effectively at each feed

I would suggest doing all four of these things, and to consider co-sleeping at night to ensure more night feeds, too.

Hope this helps.

Just seen your thread title and read your post again.

Is she still actively losing weight at 14 days? or is she plateauing within a few grams?

Active loss of weight at 14 days is actually quite serious - not something to ignore. It's good the midwives are seeing you daily. Perhaps you can share the plan of increasing your dd's milk intake with them, and see if they agree...and then arrange for further weighings.

Thank you so much for replying! I will try switching and breast compression as you suggest. Already co-sleeping, but will go for a bit more skin to skin too. So glad there was someone out there this morning as am feeling very down.

She went from 3.5kg at birth to 3.18 day 5, then 3.13 day 10 and 3.06 day 12. Doesn't seem to have plateaued (sp?). Different midwives each visit (plus hv and nursery nurse), but general message seems to be to stop her comfort sucking and work at increasing the time she's actively feeding. Your suggestions are far more detailed as to how to actually achieve this. Thank you.

Think you should still check with the midwives - I am a breastfeeding counsellor, not a midwife, and I haven't seen you or your baby or watched you feed. I deffo think you need a plan of action, sanctioned by them. Watching and waiting and hoping is not enough, I don't think, going on what you say.

Good advice from tiktok. I also had a very sleepy newborn (jaundice in our case, and a tongue-tie probably didn't help) and it was a nightmare getting him to feed enough. I think I spent more time feeding him than not in the first couple of weeks!

Co-sleeping, lots of skin to skin and holding him close all the time helped. I woke him every 2 hours and had to strip him off, tickle him, swap sides every time he slowed down etc - think there was a page on Kellymom about feeding a sleepy baby that was helpful too.

Has she been checked for a Tongue tie? This would affect her ability to feed efficiently. You could also opt for supplementing her with either ebm or ff by cup after each feed - we did this when our dd wasn't very well after she was born to feed well.