A few questions, choking, sick, engorged, pumping etc!

[NoTeaForMe]

Right, wonder how many questions I can get into one post!

My baby is 9 days old. We have worked on the latch and it's going ok, no real pain at all now-occasionally she will clamp down on her way off and that obviously hurts but other than that it's going well so far! She only has one side most feeds, she either falls asleep and doesn't want more or is just content and full! She's averaging 7 minutes a feed, though some are shorter (3/4mins) and a few are 11-15 minutes, never longer. She's feeding roughly every 1-2 hours but is going longer at night. I'm not waking her to feed-should I be?

Quite quickly after a feed my breasts are feeling really full, she can't be encouraged to feed if she's not hungry and so I can get uncomfortable between feeds-is this normal this early on? Is it just while the supply settles down? My husband has suggested pumping a bit to freeze but I worry that I will mess things up as its all going well at the moment. I would like to express for one feed a day so that my husband can feed the baby and I can have a bit of extra time with our toddler, perhaps so j can read her bedtime story, we're both missing this time together. When is a good time to start this? I don't want to mess up breastfeeding, I'm so happy it's going well but I don't want to miss the boat on giving a bottle, my friends daughter never took a bottle and it was a nightmare!

For the first bit of each feed my baby comes off coughing and spluttering-is this again normal while the supply settles? I'm having to keep
Her upright for at least 15 minutes, if not longer, after each feed otherwise you can hear the milk bubbling and she's sick.

Thanks, sure there was more...!

Was your dd premature or full term OP? I think you do need to wake baby up for feeds if they were early (I will check for link)
Maybe start expressing and freezing, I didn't start giving my dd expressed milk in a bottle until she was about 5 weeks but no bottle confusion.
My dd used to cough and splutter if let down was quick I found that if I led back a bit more it comes out a bit slower and then you can sit up a bit more after the first couple of minutes.
I always burped for 4 mins then held upright for 15-30 mins but my dd has reflux so if I don't do that she would be bring the feed back up.

Sounds like she's having quite short feeds actually. I would have expected them to last longer at that stage. But it could be nothing to worry about.

Have you tried expressing a little before you feed her? She's obviously struggling with the speed of your let down and that's why she's spluttering. If you express a little first you could get past that really fast bit and she might manage better.

Feeding only one breast a feed seems sensible when your supply is overabundant rather than lacking.

There is a wide range if normal and it sounds like your body is making quite a lot of milk while settling into a routine.

For this reason I'd hold off on expressing until things settle down. You don't want to encourage your body to make even more.

Have a browse of kellymom.com and read up about block feeding and oversupply.

www.mayoclinic.com/health/newborn/AN01687
www.breastfeedingbasics.com/articles/waking-a-sleepy-baby
Both saying wake baby but can't find the article I was thinking of- ask health visitor to be on safe side I think

She was full term Wishful , a few days over actually. She's having good nappies and had only lost a tiny bit of weight at her 5 day check.

Meant to say thanks for the replies. That's what I wondered about expressing-that it would encourage my body to make more milk and actually I don't think I need it to really!

Bump

How are you getting on now?

Thanks for asking Jolly. I'm definitely less engorged now. I think the supply must be settling down?

She's still coughing and spluttering at the beginning/most of the way through a feed, and unless we keep her upright she's really sick, and quite often even after we've kept her upright for 20 mins she's still sick and burping away. Whats the difference between reflux and just a sicky baby?

She's put on a good amount of weight between her 5 and 10 day check so breast feeding is obviously working fine and she's getting what she needs! Phew!