ANOTHER ! Im worried DS is not satisfied with breast?

[thrifttwig]

I will try to keep this short.....
DS was born 34 weeks and in SCBU for 10 days. I had issues with milk supply and have been taking domperidone, this sorted out my milk supply and once we got him home we were feeding him breast (not great latch due to horrible visit from midwife who totally distressed him) bottle (with expressed breast milk and formula).
He is currently 6 weeks and 5 days ago we decided to go EBF, his latch is great now been checked by HV who agrees latch is fine.
Over the past 5 days he has been really fussy and cries and shows some signs of hunger (not all the time though) Ive been really worried he isn't satisfied and have been topping up with 40-50ml expressed milk and sometimes 60ml formula. He rarely goes down for longer than 30 mins and can feed for up to 2 hours!
I'm confident my milk is there as

1. breasts are not hard or empty just "right"
2. he is burping
3. I can see milk in his mouth and it comes out when he latches
4. Wet and dirty nappies (lots)

I'm sorry for all the details but Ive asked a couple of people and they have said "that i am obviously not satisfying him" which really upsets me as I would really like to go EBF. Help anyone?

I was worried my DD wasn't satisfied too...would fuss and pull away from the breast. She's 11 weeks today and it got worse and worse. GP started hee on Ranitidine on Thursday for reflux and she's a different baby - sleeping longer, much more settled, smiley and feeding beautifully! Have you looked into reflux at all?

He's still very little, so he is going to be constantly suckling to increase the hormones that produce the milk. The more hormone b that's produced, the more milk will be produced. A lot of these long feeds are doing that. Tiktok is the one you need.

That sounds like a classic 6 week growth spurt. Babies feed endlessly at that stage and get really fussy - it's to get your milk supply up. It's normal and in no way suggests that there is anything wrong. Best thing to do is go with it, eat, drink and look after yourself. Supplementing with formula probably isn't a great idea because it means your body isn't getting the right signals.

Good work on getting this far - it'll be much much easier soon.

Thanks for the advice, MrsWildermac HV has said no refllux.
KateCroydon, I really want to stick with the EBF but really want DH to have some feeding time too, would expressed bottle have a negative effect or just formula? DH has offered to do some nights with expressed bottle?

As far as I know expressing is fine. Try googling 'kellymom' for good bf advice.,

thriftwig, that sounds like a difficult start.....and keeping things going after a spell in scbu with a baby born soon is hard.

I think calling one of the bf helplines would be a good idea - you need to go through all your options, and get a view on reducing the top ups. You can also talk about it with an HV/midwife and get an update on his weight.

The topping up with formula or ebm is not gonna help you get to exclusive bf, so you need to have a plan to reduce this. Your baby is only 'term' now, and he is feeding like a newborn. Nothing in your post suggests anything out of the ordinary in his feeding - babies do stay on the breast for two hours sometimes, of course they are normally not feeding literally all that time, but having tiny naps and then feeding again then a tiny nap again and feeding again. Going down for 30 mins at a time is within normal, too, and babies in this phase sometimes rest better and longer when held next to you.

Expressing for your dh to give a bottle: is this the right time? You are struggling with a baby who needs a lot of closeness and contact and feeding, and the risk with giving a bottle instead of a breastfeed is that your breasts go a long time without milk being removed. You can compensate for this by expressing at the time the bottle of milk is being given, though. Personally I think you have enough on your plate without worrying about your dh having feeding time - he can do so much more than that to help and he does not need to feed your baby to become attached. Again personally, I wonder if leaving it until things are more settled in a few weeks would be better. Just MHO!