Pleas help me with dd and feeding!

[Loopylouu]

Dd is almost four weeks old.

She was exclusively breastfeed until 16 days but she was still dropping weight at an alarming rate. I was just not producing enough milk.

So I introduced formula. Next step for me was medication for milk production and tbh I didn't want to go down that route and I have no problem at all with formula.

She is now having a ten - 20 min breast feed and then 4oz of formula afterwards. Sometimes she will still be doing her hunger cues (all the usual) and will then breast feed for another ten mins. This is every four hours.

She will then breast feed in between. She's not getting a lot when she feeds from me, and she's not feeding effectivily, you can't hear gulping or much swallowing. Occasionally I can see milk round her lips. She just likes it!

So what do I do? She's still hungry despite four hourly bottles and still wants to breast feed a lot.

Also, I have to wake her to feed at night otherwise she will happily sleep through.

Last night my phone died and my alarm didn't go off so she slept from 9pm until I woke up and woke her at 5am. Is this ok?!

Shes gaining weight now and is very alert.

I couldn't ever prodice enough breast milk for my ds, but he was in scbu and tube fed so he was just moved over to four hourly formula feeds while in hospital, so I'm a bit lost.

I would like to drop the million breast feeds a day and maybe just do a couple before giving a bottle

At the moment she is a fully formula fed baby who also breast feeds all the time (although she's not getting a lot from me)!

And I am also a bit stuck on the sleeping through. My ds slept though at 6 weeks, so maybe she's like him?!

I bf both mine so not sure about bottle feeding but 4 hourly feeds doesn't seem much at 4 wks? IIRC both mine fed every 2 hrs, even hourly throughout a growth spurt, although this may be the difference between bf and ff. Can you feed more often?

Also, both of mine slept through quite early on, 10-5 from 6 weeks then 7-7 from about 15 weeks, so I wouldn't worry too much about that so long as she is putting on weight.

loopy, many babies of this age feed little and often, whether bf, ff or mixed.

This is obviously meeting her nutritional needs at present, and it's fine she also likes to breastfeed :)

Would it not be possible for you to go with this particular flow and accept that this is what she is 'asking' for at the moment? It won't last.

You might want to ask your HV about the sleeping through. If she is really making up for the loss of weight and is gaining fast, it's prob not a big deal, but if she is still catching up, you may be better to wake and feed her.

Thanks, it's all so new to me as not only is ds almost 12 so it's a long time since I've had a baby, but he was every 4 hours, you could set your watch by him!

She's being weighed tomorrow as we have our last appointment with an independent midwife so we'll see how she's going. She's growing though, she's getting so much bigger.

Not using the HV service this time round, I didn't find them much cop with ds. One came round though to drop off the red book for my midwife and GP and her gem of advice about milk production was to drop two breatfeeds a a day totally and replace with formula as "you need time to make the milk, if you are feeding all the time then your body won't have a chance to produce any ". She actually wrote that in the red book. My midwife went loopy at that and put in a complaint about her!

I don't know if I should ff every 3 hours? Or giver her 5oz every 4 hours?

With the little breast feeds she is feeding every 1 to 2 hours.

I'm so utterly confused by it all.

And apart from last night I have been waking her 4 hours after her last feed. Some evenings she is ravenous and will have 4oz of formula at say 8pm, then will try and breastfeed for an hour and a half/2 hours and I will then give her 4 more oz of formula as she is still hungry and frustrated and I can feel I have no breast milk and she's getting nothing from me.

I'm often singing it's praises but if you'd like to keep bf too a supplemental nursing system might work. I use it to top-up my ds. At first it was after every feed but then less and less as my supply built.
An infant feeding tube inserted alongside the nipple is used like a straw to deliver formula or ebm as they feed. I put the bottle in a bag around my neck, just a regular one with a hole cut in the teat for the tube and to let air in. Amazon sell the tubes for about £5. Hth