Constant feeding and crying- help/advice needed please!

[Em1503]

Hi this is my third post in as many days but breastfeeding us a minefield!!

DD is now 12 days old and has now finally taken to the breast after having to bottle feed expressed milk in the early days! She's only been doing this from early on this morning but all day today she has been feeding from me every 20 minutes or so for about 5 minutes at a time. Is she just getting used to breast feeding?! Surely that isn't normal? She falls asleep after having a feed but then wakes crying so soon after. I think she's hungry (hands in mouth, sucking on fingers) but then she just won't settle into a proper sleep afterwards so I'm wondering if it's reflux or something too or whether she's not getting enough milk each time? Her stomach makes lots of gurgly noises. I don't know what to do for the best but it feels like I can't put her down for two minutes and she's constantly crying! It's only been a day since we gave up the bottle and I'm already at my wits end! Please help!

Maybe see if there is a breast feeding clinic you can drop in to or go and see a health visitor tomorrow. My ds was the same at first just constantly hungry, only ever got a gap of 20-30 mins between feeds for first few weeks but it did settle down and he was putting on weight the whole time. I found wearing him in a sling really helped me.

Has she been checked over for tongue tie? With only 5 min on the breast she won't be getting the hind milk (I think) which is more filling, she'll only be getting the watery foremilk. When she comes off after 5 minutes does she refuse to go back on?

I forgot to say I spoke with my breastfeeding consultant this morning and she said it could be because I have so much milk that she's full after a few minutes, but I don't think it's that. Yes she'll usually go back on but then falls asleep after a few minutes. I've got the midwife coming tomorrow so will ask her too and look into a breastfeeding group nearby. She was checked over for tongue tie by the piediatrician whilst in hospital and they said she doesn't have one.

I think feeds were lasting about 20 mins each breast early on so 5 mins does sound short.

Hope the midwife helps tomorrow

If she is crying after feeds could be worth seeing gp to rule out reflux

My baby used to fall asleep on the breast after a short while. The MW told me to keep nudging / annoying her by squeezing or tickling her on her shoulders whilst she was feeding to try to keep her awake and to keep her cool so she didn't get sleep. I would aim for 20 mins at a time. Some times it was impossible, but it did work.

She will be getting lots of hind milk if she's feeding every 20 minutes allisgood - hind milk just means milk from an empty breast.

A pattern of feeding and dozing on and off can be quite normal for a newborn, both my babies did it. Not being able to be put down can be pretty normal too - babies are programmed to want to be held. Maybe just take her to bed for the day skin to skin and do nothing but feed and sleep and see what her weight gain is like when next weighed?

I don't really understand why you would want to annoy a baby to make them stay awake unless there are weight gain/jaundice problems?

I think the midwife will weigh her tomorrow. She hardly dropped anything at her 5 day check despite the rocky start she had with feeding. She usually falls asleep on the breast but then will wake crying a few minutes later or if something disturbs her. Thanks for the replies so far.

Could she be overtired? Mine used to do this and I thought he was hungry (especially as we did have some problems with slow weight gain) and kept trying to feed him but with hind sight although he may have been hungry too he really wasn't sleeping enough in total per 24 hours and was getting too tired to feed properly. I found this out by accident when I got fed up one day and put him in the sling for a break and after a bit of crying he fell asleep for 3 hours and then fed really well...

We had the same problem with our DS (now 10 weeks old). I realised that he wasn't digesting the milk very well - the screaming was due to a sore stomach and he had lots of wind. He's now been on Colief for 4 weeks and is like a different baby. I add it to a little expressed breastmilk before every feed. The one feed I missed out ended up with him screaming again shortly afterwards.

It's £12 a bottle but you can get it on prescription if its working, I only needed to buy 1 bottle.

When you put her back on, are you putting her to the same breast or the other side?

At this age I used to strip mine and feed them to keep them awake.