Support please on BF in the night

[WinterLover]

DS is now almost 3 weeks old, he's my first baby.

We didnt get off to the best of starts with BF as he was taken off me and put in NICU then when he was finally released from there onto the Transitional Care ward to be with me he had to stay in his cot all the time except for feeds and nappy changes. He was born at 36 weeks.

The BF support in hospital was crap, if it wasnt for 2 TC nurses who had both breastfed their children and come accross the same problems I was facing my DS would be on FF now.

My problem at the min:

I spent last night crying yet again, DS is feeding every 2 1/2 hours for 20 min but then takes an hour to settle off again meaning I am getting an hours sleep max. He isnt an easy burper, and he suffers with wind to. The tummy massage and cycling his legs seems to help with that part of it.

Im considering giving him a FF at night to see if he goes longer between his feed. I know his stomach can cope with the switching between BF and FF as he was given FF top ups whilst we was in hospital.

Im not quiet sure what advice I really need, but if anyone has any words of advice id be grateful :)

Two things.

1. It usually gets better fast. You are just establishing your supply and if you are determined to breastfeed it might be better not to give a bottle. However, I am no expert!
2. Do you have a DH/DP at home? Ask him to do the burping and settling for the first half of the night so that you can bank some sleep. Or ask him to do burping and settling every other night, so at least you know you have a break coming. Tell him it won't be for long and he can have uninterrupted sleep the rest of the time!

Also - congrats!

Experts will be along shortly, I'm sure...

Thankyou :) The FF wouldnt be from a bottle, I have the cup from the hospital that they used which he is able to lap the milk from.

DP is around but he is working 15-18 hour days at the min with them starting at 4am so he's coming in from work having tea then nearly going to bed. He is at home from today till end of next week (unless they need him to work) so hopefully he can help out a nit more.

Doesnt help too much that DP snores and DS is a grunter so whereas after DPs gone to work I get back into bed and leave DS to grunt away, when DPs in bed im more concerned over the grunting in that it will wake DP up.

instead of using formula - try feeding your baby expressed milk in a cup during the night - when i do this my baby goes three hours between feeds, wheras when im bf she goes an hour between.

as others have said... it will get better.

At least your DP is around for a little while - use him!

Do you have a spare room/bed? DP could sleep in it when he needs to sleep (so you don't worry about the grunting) and you could sleep in it while DP does the settling (so you really can go straight to sleep).

Even if not, I wouldn't worry too much about the grunting disturbing DP unless he says it's disturbing him, if you see what I mean. Most women are easily roused when they have a little baby, however tired they are. I guess it's hormonal... My DH never roused as quickly/easily as I did when DD was tiny and her noise hardly disturbed him at all, as far as I know. Although he may have had the good sense not to complain, given how little sleep I was getting...!

Sounds like you have thought through the formula/cup thing. My punt would be that a baby will get more milk from the breast than a cup, but mine would never entertain such a thing so I really don't know! Has a lactation consultant checked your latch, by the way?

Yeah the latch has been checked, DS is putting on weight just not as much as they'd like even on the premature chart. So it may be he ends up on a top up feed anyway, depending on his weight gain next thursday.

Apparently DP hears the grunting no spare room as such but I have been coming downstairs when he's not settling as I can sleep on the sofa (very comfy).

DS seemed to take milk from the cup fine in hospital, used to take him 5 min to down 35ml of milk lol and he never spilled a drop