Newborn feeding every 20-30 mins or screaming! Is this normal?

[Lucinda15]

My DD is 5 days old. She latched on brilliantly at birth and has been breastfeeding well since then. My milk came in on day 3 and she has been feeding well, 1-2 hrly day &a night. But the last two nights she has been really difficult, we haven't had any sleep at all. She is feeding every 20-30 mins, and screams unless on the boob. She seems really agitated unless feeding. We are exhausted. I thought she was just establishing a good milk supply but she has seemed so inconsolable and we have had such a rough night, and I'm worried there is something else wrong. I have tried winding her incase that is an issue, she dsnt have a temp, she wakes for short periods and is alert during the day, and is doing 4-5 wet/dirty nappies a day. I called the postnatal Ward at hospital to ask a midwife but no one available to speak to me. I will contact HV's later but just wanted some reassurance.

Does anyone have any ideas/advice?

They do feed an awful lot in the first few weeks and not uncommon to be on almost constantly at this stage. It will settle and takes a little while.
My advice is lie down on your side with baby in crook of your arm and let baby latch on and get on with it. That way you can rest and when needs be roll over and swap sides to continue. Forget all else at the moment.
Congrats by the way x

Is she happy when feeding?
Have you been on kellymom website? There is lots of advice

Look on line is le leche league meeting in your area this week? Mine meet on a Monday morning.

I have breastfed 4 children, including twins. Sometimes you feel like you are feeding for hours in the early days. I coslept, laying on my side (I'm feeding now!), but do it safely. It means they can feed regularly at night, which they do.

I promise it gets easier. At the moment the kindle and box sets are your friends. Enjoy holding your baby for hours!!

Congrats on your baby! I'm not an expert but didn't want to read and run. In my experience this sounds totally normal - like you say she is establishing the supply. Go with her cues.

But - is she unsettled/crying after a feed? My son was like this and had reflux. He couldn't lie down flat at all, and was only really settled when actually feeding. This turned up when he was around 10 days old, he was prescribed omiprezole for it, which worked quite well.

Op will she take a dummy or finger or something to help soother her? It can be their digestive system getting going. You should see the poo changing from meconium to the usual mustard colour baby poo.

Or it might be something in your milk she doesn't like - mine didn't do well if I ate tomatoes my DS screamed endlessly his first few weeks. DD, I avoided tomatoes and she was a dream!

We only guessed or figured it out when DS started eating and around 8 months bit into a tomato and started screaming.

She also wants to be constantly with you. Two of mine would not settle away from me. During the day a sling may help.

All mine cluster fed from 5pm until about 9pm at this age. Do you have support?

Someone asked the other day if I thought holding and feeding 24/7 made them clingy. I pointed to my ds, who at 3 is very independent, chatty and confident, and said he was in a sling, held, coslept and fed all the time.

kellymom.com/hot-topics/newborn-nursing/

Here's a link. Good luck. Enjoy your newborn. Read books while you can!

It's very normal for newborns to cluster feed, especially in the evenings. I found it improved quite a bit by 5-6 weeks. Or maybe I just got used to feeling like a zombie that had been run over, shot then stamped on .

If it is 24/7 though and your baby seems to be in discomfort or screams every time you lay them flat, consider reflux as a cause. DS2 had silent reflux (so wasn't puking non stop) and I couldn't put him down for a second. He fed non stop to soothe his pain, which made it worse for him, poor thing.

I would say, no that's not normal. I should think it's one of the following issues:
Reflux/silent reflux
CMPA
Poor milk transfer (usually down to tongue tie)
Please get her checked out so that you and she can get a bit of rest

Is she definitely having enough wet nappies? 4/5 doesn't sound very many for 5 days old. Don't they usually say about 10 in 24 hrs?

My LO was having yellow poo nappies so i assumed she was getting milk properly, but she wasn't weeing. Eventually I expressed and fed and she gained 100g in 24hrs. She was instantly more settled. Poor little sod was starving and dehydrated. And we were still in hospital on 4 hr checks and they didn't notice anything wrong!

If you think there's something not quite right then really push it - we were fobbed off with 'oh she's fine, babies cry, of course she has weed, the nappy has just soaked it up' until i started pulling the nappies apart to show them the dry inside - then all hell broke loose!

Yes normal as milk supply establishes. Are you 'letting down' it might be that despite frequent feeding the babies not getting much milk yet?
How long is she feeding for? It might be anxiety in you about getting it right is inhibiting the hind milk coming through and providing satiation.

Try relaxing in bed/on sofa with a drink beside you, something good on tv/gentle music. Expect to remain several hours just cuddling, relaxing and feeding with no distractions in a calm, unhurried way. If you can have a warm bath together beforehand, so much the better.
It's early days yet and neither of you has really had time to get feeding established.

Sounds like cluster feeding, unfortunate that it was during the night and not evening. Did she have a good sleep afterwards? Cluster feeding for my first was every hour but second was almost constant one feed after the other, it tended to be over by 11pm though.

Very normal. She's just been living inside of you for her entire life, she wants to be close to you. It's how babies help build your milk supply as well. I promise it won't last forever. I used to call 5-9 PM "the witching hour" because DD cluster fed and was grumpy and miserable daily for the first 2-3 months at that time.

No one can say if this is ok or not, from your post, OP.

Mumsnetters who have catagorised this as normal cluster feeding simply cannot say this with any confidence. It's too soon to diagnose reflux or cows milk protein allergy.

You need to have your baby weighed as soon as possible. Seriously - this morning if you can.

You need someone to observe a feed from start to finish as soon as possible.

You need to share more info about the nappies with a midwife. On day 5, poos should be turning yellow and be copious. Don't conflate wees with poos - it's poos that count at this stage, except that if she was not weeing much this would be very concerning, but you can see and count poos more easily :)

Just to add: your baby should have stopped losing weight by now, though if you have had no interim weight since birth it will be hard to ascertain.

It is really sad that a new mother is not even able to speak to a midwife about her concerns and has to reach out to the internet - you need personal face to face help and reassurance, OP, and it is very bad you have not been able to get it.

Thanks so much for all the responses! Really lovely to have some support and advice.

I saw the HV today, she was very helpful. She watched a feed, and said latch was good and no problem there. No tongue tie. Confirmed the number of nappies was fine and saw the yellow breast milk poo and wee (DD is quite often seeing when we change a nappy so we know plenty of wee there!. The HV weighed DD and she has actually lost under an oz of birth weight, so clearly she is getting enough milk! DD also is very settled and happy during the day, feeding less frequently (1-3 hrly) and sleeping happily on back in between! (So hoping not silent reflux!) Incredibly frustrating that this is not happening at night tho! My DS had a CMPA (now outgrown) so we know of the signs to look for and, at this stage, I dnt feel we are dealing with that but I am on the look out.

All in all, I think the HV covered all bases and said I was doing really well and sounds like she is just building up milk supply.

We will see how he next few nights go, and HV has offered more support if we continue to struggle.

I am nervous of the night's tho! Fingers crossed it settles soon!

Thanks again for all the advice x

Oh good, I'm glad everything is fine (except the lack of sleep, obviously!)

Please do try a dummy and your partner at night. If you're there she'll want comfort from you but feeding won't be harmed if you do a feed and then sleep for an hour or so.

You need recovery time after delivery etc

Thank u yes will try that. She spat it out yesterday but I will persevere!

She has already started to cluster feed since 5pm.... I'm beginning to dread the night ahead

She did settle a few times last night after falling asleep next to me in bed when feeding laying down. DH said to leave her there but I was so scared of co-sleeping. I wonder if this is something we should try?

My DD did this.
She cluster fed at night usually from 7-10 I just had to sit still with her and then she slept basically through the night. It may well mean she's preparing for the bigger stretch without feeding at night?

Also, the only way I survived was co sleeping. There's lots of advice online about how to be safe.
I got so much sleep when I started co sleeping, haven't had a sleepless night since and I honestly think because I sleep well I don't get frustrated with DD and she's such a calm baby. I think because I'm calm she's calm!