Sleepiest baby in the world...ever!

[TimeWasting]

Read some good techniques on Kellymom for waking sleepy babies who need to bloomin' well have some milk, but not much success, any top tips please?

Age of baby would help........but.......

take off all his/her clothes....and as much of your top as you can get away with, (I'm assuming breast feeding and that there are no weight gain issues?? or infection/birthtrauma issues).

If this doesn't work then "flicking" the finger or thumb nail can work ( but it feels a bit cruel)

some children feed better in Rugby ball hold and some almost sitting up (rather than cradling) providing your sitting height can accommodate this . Also you could try feeding whilst sitting on an upright kitchen chair with a pillow or cushion rather than getting cosy and comfy....

My DS1 was an ill sleepy baby and I ended up expressing and cup feeding after 10 minutes at the breast, DD3 was a sleepy baby who "ate" every 2 hours but never for more than 10 mins....age 6 she's pretty much the same now...
so sleepy babies can be ok, or not...it all depends on what is going on around.

good luck

Word of caution, as you don't say how old your baby is, but when my baby was just 1 day old, all the MWs in hospital were just telling me to tickle his feet as he was being 'lazy'. It wasn't until I queried whether he looked a bit yellow did they then realise he was jaundiced and put him in incubator.

Other than any health reason, tickling feet or gently rubbing hand seems to work I think. Good luck.

Sorry, should have said, she's four days old and lost 10% weight at weigh-in yesterday, so I'm attempting to wake her after 2/3 hours, not always successfully.

Once she's on I'm mainly successful in keeping her awake for at least 10/15 minutes feed, but getting her awake enough to latch on properly in the first place is a big challenge.

TimeWasting - it's early days :) Keeping your baby skin to skin, snuggled up beside you, will help you respond to any slight feeding 'cues' and is likely to be better at actually ending in a feed than struggling and fighting to wake her.

In the meantime, you can be hand expressing and getting colostrum/milk into her, so she perks up rather than sleeps :)

I second the waking every 2-3hr approach. My DD is now 11 days old, was VERY sleepy in the beginning, lost 9% of birth weight. Midwives said wake her every 3-4hours, I did it every 2.5-3hrs. We're now day 11 & i'd say we turned the corner around day 8 or 9 - she now generally wakes herself for feeds (although not in the day when my other 2 monkeys are making a racket, think she prefers to sleep thru that!) so I have to wake her then.

I take off her entire babygro to (a) make her a little cooler & (b) have skin to skin. I also do a nappy change mid feed to wake her up again too. Its surprisingly exhausting having a sleepy baby - all the remembering when to wake her / trying to keep her awake long enough for a decent feed etc. BUt persevere, am sure you'll get there. I kept a log of her feeding times - anal I know, but helped to remind me when to wake her next. Good luckxx

Hope things are going well for you...lots of people haver been where you are, it's exhausting but it will pass...hope you have managed a few good feeds..

.I think the feeding diary is a good idea...speaking personally I was so tired I couldn't keep track of feeds...for the first few days it helped me to know what had been going on...

Just updated my other thread too - I've been waking her every two hours in day and after four hours at night, her wees and poos were spot on and the jaundice went off quick and she's put 3oz on.

She's sleepiest in the morning and early afternoon, so I'm not going to push too hard to wake her then, focus on responding to cues quickly when she is awake and I'll keep a feeding log just so I can see where we are.

well done you....every blessing to you and your family...may you all sleep as well as your little girl.......!!