DS having formula and breastfeed and still not settling

[sweetieaddict]

DS is 6 weeks and breastfeeding has gone pretty well. Struggled at the start but now well established - he is such a big feeder though I do wonder how much milk I am producing. He can feed up to an hour on each breast pretty much all day (with very short intervals between) and every night cluster feeds.

He is a sucky baby and has a dummy and when he doesn't have his dummy sucks his fingers, also on the scans he was always sucking his thumb.

We have introduced a bottle at night as I would like him to be comfortable drinking from a teat. I normally express but this week have been too tired and given formula.

However, when he has a bottle of EMB or ff he always wants the breast afterwards as well to settle him - he then has a huge feed off me after 4oz of formula - is this too much for his little tummy?

Does anyone have any advice?

Hiya, congratulations on your DS! 6 weeks is still early days and mine seemed to want milk all the time and be on the boob all the time until they were closer to three months. It was exhausting. It doesn't mean you're not producing enough, the suckling helps the production.

He won't have too much milk, or if he does he'll sick it up a bit!

Congrats! Mine's nearly 6m and still takes a long breast feed after 6oz of bottle! I think it's comfort more than hunger. Your little one will stop when full but might just suck for comfort to go to sleep.

Taking the formula and then wanting more is no sign of hunger, he associates you with more than food and probably hasn't even realised yet that you are in fact 2 separate people.

While all of what you describe can be within the range of normal I think I would get him checked for tongue tie

I agree that it may have a lot more to do with comfort. Does he drink slowly from the breast then? It may just make him feel sleepy and relaxed, it might just make him feel comfortable.

My DD is very much the same with sucking though. She's either talking to us or wanting something in her mouth, bless her (talking as in cooing, as only 8 weeks but you know what I mean).

Yes, he does drinks slowly from the breast and sometimes all he needs after a huge feed if I try to take him off is another couple of sucks and then he falls asleep at the breast.

I do want him to drink from the bottle though and do need a break after feeding him all day and pretty much all night hence getting dh to give him his formula but the idea is not working in reality!

Will get him checked for tongue tie - never heard of it until now

Thanks very much

Think it would really help you to go to a bfing clinic and ask them to observe a whole feed and check for tongue tie and upper lip tie. Milk matter do a virtual diagnosis service and you can google pictures of upper lip tie, although tongue tie can be present without the upper lip tie, its more unusual for lip tie to be present without the tt, but not unheard of

If he is feeding for long periods, do all the stuff you can to make your life easier if finances allow, like online shopping, getting a cleaner, a milkman and making sure you have plenty of snacks and drinks to hand, your phone and the remote.

If you want to speed things up a little, have you tried breast compressions?

Have you seen these videos too?