Newborn baby using me as a dummy, please can anyone help

[pigletmania]

Hi its me again. Ds was born on the 27th jan and I was bf, he became deyhydrated with jaundice and he had to go back into hospital. I was advised by the paed to bf than formula top up so that his jaundice goes and his sodium levels rise. I am doing that but now he is using me as a dummy as the bottle is so easy to take he does not have to work as hard. my supply has not come in properly i think its still the colostrum my breasts are starting to feel engorged. what do i do to get the wee one to suck on my breast. The breast feeding nursing assistant is coming today, i just want to bf please help

tiktok is right about the feeding only every 3 hours. I remembered I had DD glued to my chest. I have a nest set up on the sofa. Breastfeeding pillow, tv remote, a foot rest, and a DH waiting hand and foot.

You've already been given some great advice and hopefully the BF supporter that you see today will give you some more ideas.

I agree that skin-to-skin and lots and lots of feeding will help. Here is some info on BF and jaundice, it's quite detailed so you might learn a bit more than what the paed was able to tell you in the limited time that they get.

Your baby is not using you as a dummy, this is very normal newborn behaviour, even for babies without jaundice. You could try and encourage him to feed by stroking his cheek while he is latched on. It can be very tough in the early days but once you get through the first couple of months you get to the honeymoon period.

Congrats on your new DS :)

A lot of good advice on this thread

I had a very sleepy, jaundiced DC4, she lost a great deal of weight dropping to a teeny 5lb at 3 days and struggled to feed.

Fortunately I had a very supportive MW who fought against the peads advice to have DC4 admitted for feeding. As she put it if the baby is struggling to feed whilst mum is relaxed and comfortable stressing you both out and putting you somewhere noisy and uncomfortable wil not help.

For seven days we were on a very extreme routine of feeding every two hours and pumping in between in order to top up with a cup (much better than a bottle - although potentially messy!)

It was tough but it allowed us to stay at home and DD thrived very quickly.

Just wanted to offer some hope. Ds2 was extremely jaundiced, needed top ups of formula from bottle in scbu from days 3 to 7, then on day 11 was ill with bronchiolitis and hospitalised and tube fed, didn't really get bf going properly until day 19 (I was expressing for tube), and since them he has been ebf. In fact he refuses a bottle and has done so since 4 weeks old, he's 10 months now. All is not lost. Good luck and congratulations!