Health visitor rang today...

[TimeWasting]

She was really surprised we were still exclusively breastfeeding at 7 weeks.
Pleased sounding, but clearly shocked.

I'm beginning to think she didn't worry about DD weight gain as this would clearly pick up when I put her on the bottle.
Maybe she'll start harassing me now.

Weirdly she remembered exactly how long DH had been working away when I saw her couple weeks ago, but has forgotten that DS was bf and never had a bottle.
People are funny.

Hi carrotcake. I don't mind sharing. Ok so the teacher gave the impression that not only was bf easy and would come naturally as long as we remembered to get a deep latch but that also we should be totally baby led and not worry if the baby does not feed much at first. My daughter, for whatever reason was just too sleepy to latch well. So she would feed for a few sucks and nod off. As I did not realise this was a problem it meant she barely ate for her first forty eight hours and we were admitted with too much weight loss. Also, the teacher did not mention that it is not normal for newborns to sleep for over five hours at a time. My poor daughter was too tired to feed and conserving her energy. Had I not been of the mindset that breasting would just 'happen' thanks tothe teacher then I would have realised there was a problem and demanded help. Yes the midwives should have done more and not sent us home but I was adamant that all would be fine at home. I have memories of me sobbing in hospital saying 'but the NCT said this would be easy'

I now have an email telling this story and also other things e.g growth spurts, cluster feeds to pregnant friends and I know they have been extremely grateful to have this less pleasant and palatable info beforehand.

Happily dd and I are still going strong at sixteen months

Thanks Zimm. Wonderful that you're going strong still :)

zimm, I agree the content of the class was possibly misleading to your understanding of what the early days would be like (was this the breastfeeding counsellor or the antenatal teacher who said this stuff, BTW?).

But.

It's difficult to get a description of the early days absolutely right as many babies do take a few days to really get going with bf and it does not necessarily mean something is terribly wrong....but it does mean that mothers should be helped to be pro-active and start hand expressing and getting colostrum in, if the baby is so sleepy nothing much is happening. I'm surprised that there was a readmission after just 48 hours though - normally babies are not weighed as soon as this, but if they are and weight loss is great, then all that needs to happen is to enable the baby to have colostrum somehow. Babies don't need huge volumes as early as this, and huge volumes are not available physiologically.

If a baby is deemed to be in need of help with feeding as early as this, the usual problem is low blood sugar, again addressed by enabling access to colostrum, or dehydration (ditto).

It can be normal for a new baby to sleep for five hours - as a one off after a maybe difficult birth, it's ok for this to happen. I dont give this sort of exact guidance in a class - you hope that the necessary judgement of 'is this baby ok?' would be available on the post natal ward.

I don't think what you heard in the class or didn't hear in the class was responsible for your baby's readmission to hospital. What you heard in the class was a general sort of description and it does not sound so terrible to me; what you should have had, and didn't get, in hospital, was a precise and individual assessment of your feeding and your baby's health.

PS - good to hear you continued and things worked out :)