Newborn frantic at breast but only overnight.

[LillyBugg]

We're now entering day 5 and I finally I have milk, hurrah. Feeding was pretty relentless the first few days but we stuck through it and during Wednesday I noticed milk was seeming to satisfy starving DS and he was falling asleep nicely at the breast. However over night is a complete different story, he is so angry at my nipple! Latching on and off over and over, kicking legs, screaming and generally working himself up into a frenzy. This is only at night, and this has been the case pretty much every night. Any ideas? Cluster feeding I get, but this on off on off is driving me nuts and not achieving anything other than sheer frustration on both sides.

Hello OP. Congratulations on your lovely squidgy baby

What you describe sounds a lot like how my DS behaved for the first few weeks. I don't really have any advice other than to say that I persisted with it and he just eventually stopped fussing. Now at 13 months he is still breastfeeding, so there is hope.

Kellymom website is brilliant for all breastfeeding advice.

He's building your supply. Rest, drink water, lots of skin to skin, it will pass.
Winding him may help, and swaddling him after a feed and passing him to someone else to try and settle. Feeding lying down too makes it easier.
My DS is 3 weeks today and going 3/4hrs between feeds overnight now. It gets better!

Was just coming on to post exactly the same thread OP. It's so very frustrating isn't it

My DC2 and DC3 were like this (DC1 did the cluster feeding but not the angry distressed fussing and pulling on /off) when my milk came in.

Both children had tongue tie and it was much more difficult for them to feed from engorged breasts full of milk vs soft breasts with colostrum. We had both DC snipped privately in the first week and it improved immediately.

Are there any signs of tongue tie? An anterior one should be visible. A posterior one will not be but you can go through the list of symptoms.

Thank you for replies so far. Yes he does actually have a small tongue tie, but when he is calm this doesn't seem to affect feeding at all. He can latch, and he is getting milk from me. Since I've had milk I'm also a lot less sore, if anything I would say it has improved his latch.
Swaddling, laying down and someone else doesn't seem to help unfortunately. His head is still bobbing around like crazy and he won't just latch and feed, he goes on and off repeatedly before just screaming the place down and working himself up into a frenzy.
It's just so frustrating that it only happens at night, he is just so very frantic. Maybe I am just expecting too much and I need to wait for him to settle into life on the outside. At some point though I am going to need some sleep, and he woke DS1 for the first time last night, something I was really hoping to avoid.

Just bumping hoping for some inspiration before tonight!

Sometimes they can be unsettles at night because during the day there tends to be more noise staff going on but at night they feel anxious and want to be comforted but are unsure what they want. Supply tends to be slower late even8ng to which can cause them to want to swap sides. Swapping sides can help up supply to so it's almost instinctive.

Generally I found that for first few weeks I could hardly put babies down at night. But it does get easier as they get use to the world outside the cosy familiar womb.

Supportive family who will have baby in day, take for a walk or cuddle so that you can get a bit of sleep will help no end. Sleep when baby sleeps

I was told that when you breastfeed the quality of sleep is higher so an hour is like 3. This kept me going for the hardest nights

Also when falling asleep at breast try to rouse and swap sides as sometimes they fall asleep when milk flow slows but if flow picks up again they will continue to drink even in a sleepy state while sleeping.

Are they cutting tie? I wonder if nursing is tiring him out due to tie which means by evening he is overtired which is causing some degree of the fussiness

DD1 was just like this and had a TT. Commiserations to you as it was utterly exhausting. The only things that vaguely helped we're doing breast compressions, feeding her in the bath and walking around outside with her in the sling. Second two prob quite difficult with older DC.

DD2 had no tongue tie and didn't do it at all. I was drunk with sleep in comparison!

Hope it improves for you soon OP.

*were not we're

I have been swapping sides and will continue to do so. I might try white noise as it is very quiet at night so that could be an issue.

There is no intention to cut the tie at the moment as during the day he is feeding well. It's just this frantic feeding at night. I seem to have even more milk now so I'm hoping tonight may be a little better. But I'm also aware that it is very early days and this could just be a phase that will pass.

I'd love to sleep when baby sleeps but with a toddler to look after it's just not always possible. I do like the idea that breastfeeding sleep is worth three times more than ordinary sleep...although I don't see how it can be!!

We had a much better night last night. I noticed he started kicking his legs and getting upset when the light went out. So I left it on all night and he fed perfectly and went back to sleep every single time. Yes we fed every 1-1.5 hours but I would expect that. Can it be possible he doesn't like the dark?!

Oh brilliant Lily! Glad something worked. Babies are such odd creatures aren't they? Maybe he wants to see you? Or your nipple to latch on? Or maybe he had a painful wind one night and has a negative association with the dark. Hope it works again tonight.

Hi LillyBugg! Your LO sounds exactly like how my DD (now 12 weeks) behaved when my milk came in. She too had a mild tongue tie and only fussed at night - but boy was it a nightmare! She would be headbutting and almost hyperventilating until we were both in tears. I think, like another poster said, it was harder for her to latch at night as my breasts were much fuller overnight than during the day.

If they offer to snip the tie I'd definitely recommend it. My DD would seem satisfied with what she was getting during the day and I was a bit worried about getting hers done in case it hurt her (I later learned there's no nerves there so doesn't) but my MW advised us getting it done when she was just over a week old as I developed mastitis because she wasn't properly draining the milk. It made such a difference to her feeding in the evenings and overnight.