4 week old not feeding very well, but alert. Wwyd?

[Needsomewine]

I've had several trails and tribulations trying to get bf established but we've had a good few days and dd2 has started to put on weight. However, yesterday she didn't have a great feed all day but didn't really think about it until the evening. In the end, I topped her up but she hardly had 1oz. In the night she fussed and fussed at the breast so I expressed and gave her ebm instead. But she only took very small amounts- 1oz at 6am and 2oz at 9am. She is normally v eager to drink a from a bottle but seems lack lustre at the mo. When bf, she doesnt seem to have the energy and falls asleep more quickly. Also she settled v easily in her basket overnight, from awake, she is not normally that easy!! Do you think I should keep an eye for a while or see the HV/gp?

Get her weighed (officially!) and then reassess whether she still needs to be woken at night more than she would do anyway????

I think she's going to be weighed tomorrow, is that it?

No she's not due to be weighed until next Tuesday! HV said to leave it nearer 2 wks as we'd see the bigger picture a bit more. I can kind of see the sense in that. I would like her weighed this week in a way but am scared of seeing the numbers as she truly doesn't seem any fatter to me! She is definitely getting longer though. I wish I could just relax a bit like you have said many times, I fed dd1 just fine. Blooming home scales!

I feel very strongly that she feeds better with some of her feeds more spaced out ( at night for instance). She fed great this morning 5am to 6am, probably because of the longer spacing. BUT I know that goes against all advice for making a little baby gain weight arghh!

Hmm, Would you get her weighed this week or leave it til tues?

Tuesday will be fine. It is far better to get the bigger picture, and in fact 2 weeks is relatively frequently once a baby has regained birthweight, as yours has. Monthly is the best frequency for getting an accurate view of growth.

No one can really see a baby getting fatter day by day, still less hour by hour or feed by feed :) :) You are looking for things you cannot see, I reckon.

Long spaces between feeds reduce intake and reduce production - there is no argument with that. Babies tend not to feed 'well' (ie comfortably, happily) if they are 'asked' to feed when they do not want to feed. A baby who is nine-tenths asleep, for instance, or who has been woken from a deep sleep, may not feed well. The trick is hitting the right moment, sorry. But deliberately extending gaps between feeds is never a good idea unless you are deliberately trying to reduce milk intake/production.

That's the problem, dd is at least nine-tenths asleep for, I'd say, half of her feeds when I wake her. Not easy at all. I need a baby that demand feeds!! I'm sure I didn't feed dd1 this often apart from say 2 periods a day when she might cluster feed.

What would happen if you fed her in response to actual cues, rather than waking her, needsomewine? I don't mean crying, but the earlier cues.

Try to trust your baby. I assume she's way pass regaining her birth weight. If shes hungry, she will feed. Sometimes she will take a sip for thirst. Other times she might want a Sunday roast.

Ofc this is easier said than done. I just whined to my DH about 6mo DD lack of process at solids. It's exactly like what you write here, replacing bf with solids, and bottles with bf.

I think some babies do respond better to bigger gaps between feeds. I know that goes against what seems to be current advice. My DS2 (11 weeks old now) definitely feeds better with a bigger gap and happily feeds 4 hourly through the day now, 8 hours at night. It obviously works for him. We had a difficult start with him losing weight and struggling through the first two weeks before I got him on gaviscon (for reflux). He went down to the 9th centile and is now just over the 50th.

He tends to need to sleep before a feed to be able to feed properly otherwise he falls asleep after a couple of sucks (sound familiar?). If I tried to feed him after 3 hours I'd be catching him just as he needed to go to sleep. I should add that at 4 weeks it was 3 hourly feeds not 4 but he certainly didn't need feeding more often than that, and in fact he's gained weight noticeably faster in the last 2-3 weeks since he's been going 4 hourly. Oh and re the length of feeds, for him it's an hour including nappy change. I don't think it's because he's inefficient, I think it's because he takes enough to keep him going to the next feed. It's just the way he works. My DD was much the same (DS1 was FF). Some babies probably do function better on smaller feeds with smaller gaps in between but I don't think that means they all need to feed so often.

Tiktok, I don't know as from birth I have had to wake her every 4 hrs to feed and since then I have been trying to feed her more often. If she is awake, I of course follow her cues and that is fine. Occasionally she will wake before my alarm goes off at night but this hasn't happened for about 10 days. For example, I fed her this eve at 6.20pm for about an hour. She is now in a deep sleep and I'm gearing up to wake her up. If I hold her, she gets even more warm and snuggly and sleepy!! I am going to let her go for 5 hrs in the night if she wants to as the last few nights have been horrendous after I've woken her after 3, she just doesn't feed very well. Got to try and look after myself I think

Zdcgbjm- all of what you describe sounds very similar:). I definitely feel that dd needs sufficient sleep between feeds to feed properly. If she stays awake after a feed, I tend to need to feed again after say 1.5 hrs but this ends up being a short feed as she's knackered! I then feel I need to leave her another 1.5 hrs so she has a decent sleep. Thus it becomes quite a long time since she had a good feed. I'm sure dd1 did this too but dd2 is a lot lighter and slightly more sleepy.

Is she having lots of wet nappies? 5-6 per day? If so then her milk intake is fine. At four weeks old and no worries about weight gain (I know you have worries, needsomewine, but the weight gain isn't worrying your HV, am I right?) just feed her when she shows signs of needing feeding, ideally every 3-4 hours or less. One period of more than 3-4 hours eg five or six hours at night, is fine.

At four weeks old and no worries about weight gain or nappy output then I wouldn't wake her in the night - wait for her to wake, unless you feel she is ultra sleepy and there might be another underlying reason for this?

She should be feeding 8-12 times in a 24hr period, which could be every four hours day and night or every three hours in the day and less at night. Read your baby - is there any reason to think she is not well? Any reason to think she is not thriving? I don't mean how she feeds or how often but is she settled between feeds, does she have a good colour, is she generally settled?

If nappies are good and weight gain is fine and you are keeping her close and feeding her on cue, then there is no need to worry. You need to trust your body, I hope you can start to because it must be dreadful feeling so worried when you are doing so well.

And stop weighing her at home. Weight gain is not the only indication that she is feeding well - look at nappies, colour, general happiness instead.

I've never woken the baby to feed at night. Not with any of them BF or FF. I think they're naturally inclined to sleep longer at night if you let them so it makes sense to go with that. So at 4 weeks old DS2 was feeding roughly 3 hourly through the day. I'd feed him sooner if he asked for it but wake him to feed 3 hourly if he didn't. Then at night I'd leave him be and he'd go 5 hours or so then. A few weeks ago I realised he didn't really seem ready to feed after 3 hours and that coincided with me needing to fit round school runs which meant a 4 hourly routine worked better so I started leaving him to 4 hours and he just slotted straight into that with no problems at all. If he starts crying between feeds it's because he's tired so I settle him to sleep. In the early days that sometimes meant a very quick BF just to get him off to sleep. Now it's usually a couple of sucks on a dummy and a snuggle with a muslin, or a walk in the pram, or me walking around cuddling him. Sometimes he just takes himself off to sleep with no help.

I keep reading on here about how BF babies need to feed more often and need to feed in the night and it's just not my experience at all. Not with either of my BF babies. I think trying to live up to that, if it's not what your baby is asking for, is making life unnecessarily difficult for yourself. If your baby is alert, happy, having wet and dirty nappies, and not causing your HV any concern with weight gain, then you're doing perfectly.

She has lots of wet nappies, only poos once every 5 days or so but this doesn't worry me as I've heard it's normal, so different to dd1 though. She is very happy and settled most of the time and awake periods are definitely lengthening. We're getting along quite well at the moment so just hope her weight is ok.

zdc much of your post is music to my ears. I definitely didn't feed dd1 every 2.5 hrs unless she demanded it of course! But this is obviously not the norm. I hope dd2 has put on weight and I can go back to slightly less frequent feeding as nothing is getting done around here! :)

Well she's only put on 7oz in 13 days. I know others carry on with rubbish weight gain but don't think i am strong enough too with dd2 at the bottom of the chart. Feel so upset right now. Why did it work with dd1 and not this time?!

To not too

Sorry, needsomewine but that (7 oz in 13 days) is within normal parameters - what were you wanting her to gain?

I guess the minimum that I wanted her to gain would be 10oz in that time. Yes according to Kellymom, that weight gain is just into normal parameters but rightly or wrongly I'm disappointed. Nights have been awful too which doesnt help. Kinda feel that I am due a bit of success with bf this baby as things have been tough but I am aware things don't work like that. Feel teary at the moment. I expect I will stubbornly keep going til next weeks weigh in, HV on my back now though.

Well, to me, you are breastfeeding successfully :)

You had a tough start.

That's now in the past.

Your baby is now healthy and growing.

What did HV say?

Has anyone's baby gained slowly like this to start with and then started to gain better amounts without switching to ff or mixed feeding?

She put 'slow weight gain' in the book and broached the idea of mixed feeding. I said I'd have to think about it. She wants to weigh dd next week and think if she only gains a small amount again, she'll be pressuring quite hard about the mixed/ ff route. I do agree to an extent, I don't want dd to be dropping through centiles when she's tiny anyway but also really want to make this work properly as I did with previous dc :(.

What exactly is she doing on the centiles, needsomewine?

oh god you sound so upset and stressed needsmorewine firstly i am not an expert but a weight gain of 9oz in a week if great and if she has then gained 7oz over the next fortnight then that is still ok, she isnt going to gain huge amounts every week.

is she very sleepy? and it is hard to wake a very sleepy baby, sometimes they just arent interested in feeding when sleepy. i would be inclined to see how long she would sleep for, i wouldnt let her go longer than 5hrs or so, but every 2 hours seems insane for you and for her.

you say she is awake more and happy and alert, so she is obviously doing ok, it doesnt sound to me like there is major cause for concern or formula top ups? i could be wrong, am sure tiktok will tell me if i am.

i think you need to relax and spend some time cuddlng and relaxing with your baby, let her feed on cue, maybe spend some time in bed and let her nuzzle and snuggle and latch etc as she wants to, stop obsessing about the clock, she doesnt know how to tell the time! her tummy will let her know when she is hungry, or when she just wants to nurse for comfort etc.

also her feeding a bit, then falling asleep, then feeding more when you milk lets down again is normal, mine would all do this and i let them when i could but if i was busy had other to deal with i would take them off and try and put them down, or in the sling, they would let me know if they wanted to go back on again.

i am not sure what else to say but i really think you need to see a bfeeding counsellor to help reassure you and to check your babies feeding if that woudl help you.

GET RID OF THE SCALES!! and try and follow your instinct and your baby a bit more. if anything i think you are over thinking this all, but i know how worrying and stressful it can be when you feel babies arent feeding properly, but it sounds like she is doing ok. xxx

oh and re the 10oz you wanted her to gain,and she gained 7oz, that 3oz difference, well that is probably just a big poo, so if she had pooed that day or the day before then that would account for that!

She was born on the 9th and has dropped to just below the 2nd. She has only put on 1lb in nearly 5 weeks.

4madboys thank you for your kind words. She hasn't poo'd since last Thursday! Her nappy is always wet though.

Dd is doing great, I feel. She seems very alert and settled most of the time, no big screaming sessions that aren't settled by feeding her. In-between my stressy days I am having a lovely time with her. I feel the feeding is going ok and she now wakes for night feeds and doesn't sleep longer than 4 hrs at night. It's for this reason that I'm upset about her weight. I thought she would have gained more weight. She is growing out of clothes etc.

I feel I am doing everything right but when her weight doesn't increase much I doubt EVERYTHING! Milk supply, frequency of feeding, latch etc etc.