Newborn not feeding enough at night?

[KatieLily12]

Hello all

I'm fairly sure some people will wonder what on earth I'm worried about but I'm not sure about my 7 week olds feeding pattern. I'm breast feeding on demand, things are mostly going ok except she gets quite refluxy so I've been eeking her out to 3/4 hourly feeds if she'll tolerate it to help her tummy. It's worked really well and she's feeding better each time now- longer feeds and less fussing and more importantly, less sick and pain.

HOWEVER, she appears to be going through the night without waking to feed. The evening feed is always an epic battle, I start to dread it from about 6 to be honest. We bath and she's tired as she usually misses a late afternoon nap and then we settle to feed and she never hits that satisfied point; just feeds and feeds then fusses and screams around the hour mark. Evenings can get pretty intense as a result trying to settle her so when she slept 6 hours I assumed she was just very full and tired but she's now sleeping 8/ 9 hours??? We co sleep so I know the minute she stirs and we go for for it but I'm worried she's not eating enough.

Do I just go with this and continue to be led by her and its possibly just a phase or do I wake her to feed her?

Hi katie

It's not unusual for them to cluster feed from 5 to 11 at this age and be more fussy at night...key colic age. It passes.
I got told off by hv when i admitted to hv that ds was sleeping through for 8hrs. Was told i had to wake at 4hrs for feed. I compromised at 6.

Is your baby feeding well rest of day in terms of number of feeds and growing well with lots of wet nappies? Alert when awake inday no temp and developmentally on track (smiling fair head control)? If all above ok would be tempted to enjoy while it lasts...perhaps with 8hr limit. Check kellymom website for their advice. I'm sure other more knowledgeable people will be along soon.my ds slept through to 6m...i was the envy of my nct group. Then it changed....ok now though. He's fast asleep just me who can't sleep celebrating the joys of being heavily pregnant:(

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

She's 25 th centile weight gain and been steadily there since 2 weeks. She lost too much due to nipple feeding in that first week but we got that sorted. As a result we know the signs to look for & she's never shown them. She's a feisty young lady who yells for food, poops like a trooper and grins when she's watching me sing and dance for her amusement. She's telling me she's fine. I'm just worried

I pretty much go with her demand except I was finding if she fed 2 hours or less she fussed on the breast by 15 mins in- screaming, wet burps, sick so I got in this horrible switching pattern to get her anywhere near over 20 mins. So now we feed about every 3 hours: awake straight after and play then grumpy then sleep (if I'm lucky) then nappy change and back on. She goes for about 35-40 mins.

The evening feeds are stressing me out though and I wonder if she's knackerig herself out? She never hits satisfaction but if we keep putting her back on she fusses and fights (the other night she nearly took my nipple off- I had to take painkillers!!!) and gets very sick where she is just over full. She we cut off at the point she's really cross and try and soothe her (unsuccessfully) for as long as possible to give her tummy a rest and avoid her throwing everything up and screaming in pain.

Katie, have you spoken to anyone knowledgable about this? The bf helplines are open over the holidays and it might help to have a proper conversation about it.

Cluster feeding - even lasting hours and hours - is absolutely normal for a baby of this age, and fighting it, as you are doing, is distressing for the baby...I suspect you are thinking 'she must have had enough by now!', putting her down, and then finding she wakes up or resists and is then difficult to feed in an upset state? Keeping her in your arms - yes, for hours! - and just letting her help herself as and when cannot be more difficult than what is happening now...which is clearly not working well to keep you all happy and comfortable. Forgive me if this is not what's happening - hard to tell from your post all the detail :)

To be honest, it's not crystal clear what's going on at the moment - whether she has reflux, or colic, or nothing, and whether the lack of night feeds is concerning or not. It's good to keep an eye on her weight, because of the difficulties at the beginning and because of the current infrequent feeds but chances are, as you indicate, she is fine :)

Most 8 week old babies can sleep from 11pm til 6am without waking for milk, Your baby is telling you she can do it too!
The fussiness in the evening is probably due to being over tired.
From 10pm try taking her up to the bedroom away from stimulating environments so she can relax and chill. Introduce some relaxing music and soft lighting to calm and distract her. We need chill out sessions and so do babies.
What works well is giving a feed before the bath and then to relax her more feed again after the bath to settle her to sleep. Check your milk supply as fussing babies that rag the breast are trying to get more milk.
You will increase milk hormone and more milk if you feed both sides.

Hello all

Thanks for the replies. I spoke to my friend earlier whose a BF counsellor who agreed the night feeds weren't too concerning considering she's a healthy weight etc. esp after today where she's eating for an hour at a time every 2-3 hours! It has meant she's been VERY uncomfortable with the more regular and longer feeds though. Poor bean.

With the evenings I feed her then try to hit the midpoint between feeds to bath as she's sick if its too close or desperate if too long after. We bath together and have skin to skin, baby massage and then snuggle together with low lights and sound while she feeds and we try to settle her.

The reason I 'cut her off' is because she's screaming and wailing at the breast. I have quite a forceful let down which now she's figured out she wants all the time and is distraught that she's having to work for it OR she seems to want to suckle and is cross the milk is there (in which case my little finger works!) I reoffer regularly but often she screams just as hard so my partner and I take it in turns with the sling/ little finger/ cuddles etc till eventually she settles either on a feed or on one of us. We co sleep so I can feed throughout the night if she wants.

I thought you needed to keep them going on one breast to keep your supply up and get to the richer feed? Research I read showed that switching can decrease milk supply if they've not fed as fully as they want from one? I always offer the other if she's fussing on one or not satisfied but when we hit a bad phase I was switching so much, my supply plummeted and we had screaming before I managed to build it up again. I'm confused :(

Looking forward to reading more advice on this one. Every single person (MW, HV, BF support lady)... they all give contradicting advice. Only ever one boob, both boobs always, unlimited time, don't let them faff about, be baby led, keep to 3 hourly feeds. Argh! There's no agreement out there. Drives you to distraction and knocks your confidence when you don't fit with whatever idea/expectation they have.

" Most 8 week old babies can sleep from 11pm til 6am without waking for milk," - absolutely not true :( !

How does she 'chck her milk supply?'

After holiday, Katie, I will post more explaining why feeding from one breast only reduces supply, and why when there are concerns about a baby's intake, switch nursing is the way to go.

Yes I get very confused. From what I've read you should make sure little one leads the feed and when they come off the breast, offer the second after a bit of winding, offer the other boob.switch nursing should only be done specifically and not as standard practice because your baby should 'take what they need' and your body responds to that.

However, when little one got into these frenzied feeds at night, I was concerned and was told all of the following, by the same health visitor (!):

• you can't over feed a breast fed baby
• be baby led
• she might by fussy because she's windy and her tummy hurts so don't keep trying to get her to eat
• if her tummy is too full, it will hurt her so put her in the sling to distract her or let her suckle

:s

I came out more confused than when I went in and have been reading advice ever since! I know from observing her closely that she is a guzzler who likes the fast let down and gets frustrated when things slow down and that she feeds better on a 3 hourly cycle. If I can get her feeding in that cycle, we'll have a less refluxy day but I still respond to what she's telling me: if she can't be distracted from feeding after just an hour, we feed.

The hardest thing for me is that end switch. I hadn't realised that you should always do it so had just reoffered the same breast as I was told to get her to the richer milk and not switch by my midwife. She feeds happily most times from one side for about 40 mins and rarely 'comes off happily'. It's always a case that she gets more fussy/ windy so I burp her more and more till eventually she gets distracted and stays looking around. If I offer the second, we feed for over an hour and she screams from an over full tummy and only comes off because she's fussy/ windy.

Also if she is feeding for that long a stretch, surely my supply is ok?

I'm totally confused by this point if I'm honest.

I think you need to stop overthinking this so much, she is gaining weight well and sleeping well at night. As someone else said I would put give her a bath and then feed her at 7pm and put her to bed, it does sound like a lot of the fussing is due to her being tired and getting confused as to what she wants! Then I'd feed her at 10/11pm.

There is nothing wrong with her sleeping that amount of time, I have 3DC who have all slept from between 8-11 hours without feeding by 7 weeks

It also sounds like she would benefit from better sleep in the day if you think she gets really fussy at bedtime.

Katie - just be baby led :)

Deliberately 'switching' - swapping to the other breast and back again and again when the baby markedly slows down her sucking and swallowing - is indeed used to boost supply and intake. Babies tend to greater volumes this way, and this also increased production. It does not decrease supply, so my guess is that your baby's behaviour when you did switch nursing was not indicative of a lower supply. Not sure how you'd know your supply is reduced, anyway. Switching after timing - the old '10 mins a side and no more' - reduces supply.

Foremilk/hindmilk is not something that needs 'engineering' if the baby is removing milk effectively.

Babies do sometimes go through fussy phases and whatever you do does not seem to work. I think the idea that they may need to feed less often to avoid reflux or colic is possible, but not very likely. They grow out of these phases anyway :) I think a baby of 7 weeks who is not feeding at all for 8-9 hrs may be ok, but it's sufficiently unusual to suggest a weight check might be in order.

Thank you so much TikTok that makes sense.

I found that if I didn't persevere when she fussed at the 20 min mark (seriously, it's every time like clockwork) is then get into this swapping game back and forth over and over, getting shorter each time. I assumed that it was a shorter feed telling my body that she was satisfied. I thought I had to keep going to make sure she got to nice fatty milk after my midwife told me not to switch once my milk came in.

Incidentally I've been reading the no cry sleep solution and realised little bean just isn't napping enough at all and so could be explaining the evening screams. Let's see...