breastfeding too much

[melli]

hey all...my ds is 11 weeks old and feedimg loads, but still seems irritable. could i be feeding him too much? thought he was over his wind trobles but they seem to have returned. could my regular offereings be the cause?

Not necessarily. Can you be a tad more specific... how often do you feed / Do you feed from both sides? Is he making "air" like noises when he eats? Do you have any pain when you BF ?

well..used to feed every 2-21/2 hours. today the feeding has reached a peak every hour . I dont always offer both sides as hes usually falls asleep on boob 1. havnt heard any air noises. but he does get pretty restless while feeding and tends to latch on and off loads.
havnt had any pain when feeding him.

Well there is such a thing as 12 weeks growh spurts..... I know another one! But that may explain the extra feeds. However I would wake him up (by changing nappy, opening vest,..) after 1 boob to either encourage him to finish that side or start the other. He may be restless if he finds the milk not comong fast enough. Does he get any bottles of formula or breast milk ?

When my ds unlatches it is usually a sign that

1. he needs to have a burp
2. he is impatient with the time to let-down
3. he has emptied that side
4. he is distracted by something in the environment (but I think that only started happening as he got older).

When he unlatches do you sit him up and see if he needs to burp? Do you feel the let down (sometimes I feel it so strongly it hurts - sometimes it can take a while and I need to concentrate on the feeling of him sucking). Even if my ds falls asleep on boob one (only happens to me at the bedtime feed now) then I still change sides and that usually wakes him up and he takes a bit more from the second. When he was smaller though, for his middle of the night feed, I laid him next to me on the cold leather sofa to wake him up - if I didn't he would wake up twice in the night instead of once.

I followed the GF stuff and she strongly advocates checking that the crying or unsettled behaviour isn't caused by something else other than hunger and so not putting baby to the breast everytime he cries (I know this is controversial for some people ...)

HTH

yes i suspected the growth spurt..Hes breastfed exclusivly , he hasnt had any expressed milk in bottles as yet. hes got a bad case of creadle cap as well, poor thing seems to be having a real time of it. thought i could see a tooth coming in and he keeps chewing his hand. there seems a number of possibilities. thanks for replying so quick.