2 week old still not back to birth weight- sleepy baby

[Needsomewine]

I'm feeling a bit sad tonight. Dd is 2 weeks old and is still not quite back to birthweight of 6lb 3oz. She is very sleepy and only feeds every 4 hours. Please don't tell me I need to feed her more often as some of her 4 hourly feeds are very hard work in terms of keeping her awake. I often have to take her off the breast as she has fallen into a deep sleep. She feeds naked and I wake her up up to 8 times during a feed. However, she can feed really well, I hear her glugging milk down and she has very wet nappies throughout the day. She only poos once every 5 days so god knows what weight she'd be if she poo'd more often. I topped her up for the first week or so as she was tongue tied but she then started settling between feeds just on my milk so I stopped top-ups. When she has a good feed, she will posset so I don't think she would tolerate top-ups anyway. I keep her on each boob for at least half an hour (in total), longer if I feel there is still milk there. What am I doing wrong. She only lost about 5oz as I topped up in the first week so why isn't she gaining well? Any thoughts would be really appreciated:).

[Needsomewine]

You are right tiktok, if she has put on a bit of weight, things will be better and I will relax a bit in my ability to feed her. But, what do I do when she refuses to feed and is hungry? I don't want my nights to continue in this pattern. I don't really want to involve dh at night and I certainly don't want to be expressing.

[tiktok]

Yes, you had milk....it would be physiologically highly unusual if you did not. Your baby did not want to feed at that point - no biggie, honestly. Not latching properly or sucking when she did latch on may mean nothing more than this is not what she wanted at that time.

Hope things go better today.

[tiktok]

If she refuses to feed maybe she is not hungry at that moment.

This is one of the points of skin to skin contact and the way it allows you to stay close to your baby all the time. You have to watch the baby not the clock. You become more 'skilled' at understanding when she is making 'moves' that indicate she is willing to latch on and being able to respond 'on the spot' before the moment passes.

Struggling to latch a sleepy baby, maybe a baby you have actually tried to wake up, because the clock says 'it's time' can lead to exactly the experiences you have described. The baby gets cross and frustrated and resistant.

More frequent feeding is definitely helped by skin to skin or when that's not convenient, close holding (like 'wearing' the baby in a sling).

How does this sound?

[Needsomewine]

Yes, she wasn't very hungry this morning, even though it had been 4hrs since her last feed by the time I resorted to a bottle! But in the night she was obviously hungry. Maybe I had this with dd1 though and just had to get through it until she started to feed. Things certainly weren't easy on that bf journey either, but successful in the big picture! Trouble is because she was only 6lb 2oz last week, the pressure is on me to top her up if we have a feed that isn't working. Yes, things would be different if we were 6 weeks down the line and gaining weight with the same scenario as last night. I am also worried she will start to prefer a bottle as she seems to be having a few!

[Needsomewine]

Just to update, dd put on 9oz in 8 days so is most certainly up to birth weight now . We have had a really good couple of days, mainly because she is staying awake more during feeds, only have to wake her once or twice now so a big improvement. Still having to wake her for feeds but I expect that will soon change! Thank you so much for supporting me up to this point, i have really appreciated the it:).

[crikeybadger]

Wow, that is great news Needsomewine.

Well done for all your hard work in getting to this point.

[tiktok]

Yay :)

[LoveBeingAMummyAgain]

Fab news, well done!