Relentless cycle of feeding, nipple sucking and being sick!!

[Writerwannabe83]

I just need to get this off my chest and hopefully hear that other babies are just as crazy as mine

I have a 3 week old baby who is breast fed. He typically has a good routine with his feeds, waking every 3 hours, feeding for 20-30minutes and then settling back down again.

However, over the last few days he has been cluster feeding to the point where he is on my breasts for hours at a time. However, he doesn't spend all his time feeding and his usual behaviour is as follows:

Feeds for 10 minutes.
Starts to fall asleep.
As he falls asleep his latch loosens and he starts sucking on the nipple.
I break the seal and pull nipple from his mouth.
He gets fractious and I sit him up to wind him.
He is then usually sick as a result of taking in so much milk with this constant cluster feeding.
He then starts screaming and rooting, munching on his hands etc
In response to these feeding cues I put him back on the breast.

We then start the cycle again. After the cycle has been repeating itself for an hour I then swap breasts and it starts again on the other side.

My nipples are so, so, sore because they just aren't getting any respite.

Someone please tell me this is a phase....

Growth spurt? They definitely go through phases of doing this and it's exhausting. I'm all settled in for this evening's cluster feeding with my 4 day old ds and it's very tiring. Have you got Lansinoh for the soreness?

I seem to remember it all settling down around 6-8 weeks with my first so hopefully it will for you too soon.

My baby did this at first. She is now 7 weeks and a VERY healthy weight! A few things I did that helped me; when she started to nod off I stroked the back of her hand or gently 'shoogled' her to keep her awake a bit longer. I also found that when she started to slide off the nipple when falling asleep if I just leaned in she could latch on just fine herself. This seemed to help with sore nipples. I found that winding her immediately often ended in vomiting so either tried to wait a little or lift her slowly into a sitting position - rubbing proved less sicky than patting on the back. Lifting her to my shoulder after a feed still results in vomit down back! When all else failed and cluster feed had become more about comfort than hunger I passes her to her father and left the room. Almost always worked to settle her and take her mind off milk.

I do wonder fred if some of the cluster feeding is just comfort suckling and I should give him to DH to settle him down. If you had success with that then I think I'll try it.

He was cluster feeding for 2.5 hours late last night and then again for another 2 hours from 5am this morning.

My DH keeps saying we should just give him a dummy but I really don't want to do this. My DH is looking for the quick and easy solution without considering that in the bigger picture it may not be what's best for DS.

We've had the exact same situation and we resisted the dummy and escaped cluster feeding by passing DS to his Dad or Grandma for an hour or so or distract him by giving him a bath.

You are doing really well though don't get stressed. My LO sleeps for 2 hours first sleep then an hour or an hour and a half thereafter. 3 hours sounds like pure bliss!

Also, are you winding just out of habit of is he actually windy? My DS has done about 3 burps in his entire life (he's 4 weeks) and if I put him on my shoulder after a feed he would definitely be sick!

We've had terrible problems with wind in the past and the MW advised we start Infacol which has helped - he does lots burps, big ones and small ones. Most of his vomiting occurs whilst he's at the breast, he will suddenly pull away and then loads of milk will come pouring out his mouth, the other times are when I sit him up after a feed and the same thing happens. I don't sit him up for about 10-15 minutes post feed but it doesn't make any difference.

Sorry to jump on this thread but we have a similar issue. It only happens on his night feed at 10pm, he will wake up feed, stop himself from feeding then fall asleep. I go to put him down and he wakes up and wants to feed again. Even if I don't put him down he will all of a sudden wake and want to feed. When I do feed him, the moment he comes off the boob he is sick and its not a small amount. He does this pretty much constantly till his 1am feed when once he has fed he goes down. Any advice?
Also, didn't know about the winding thing, Kian very rarely burps yet we wind him every time, might leave him for a bit unless he needs it. Thank you x

We've had a lot of sickness from 5 week old, also hours of continuous feeding (8pm -3am last night though that was v long even for him). When I start getting really fed up I sometimes find that gritting my teeth to his complaints and taking him out in the pram can sometimes send him to sleep (I recommend cobbled alleys, the bumpier the better!). Even if he doesn't go to sleep, getting some fresh air and a break from feeding definitely makes me feel calmer and more cheerful, and I'm sure an otherwise healthy baby won't starve to death during a half hour walk. Re sickness the health visitor recommended just holding him upright after feeding rather than actively trying to burp him, also avoiding lying him flat immediately after feeding, eg by changing nappy in between sides (I now change the nappy before feeding instead). The sickness does seem better than it was, he still brings bits up but it seems more the quantities I would expect rather than seeming that he's brought up everything he's eaten and made himself hungry again. Will be watching this thread for any other tips!