Short frequent night feeds

[ReggaeIrish]

Hey all,

So my lovely DD is just two weeks old, and up till two nights ago, she would wake up twice in the night have a good feed from the breast then pop back off to sleep. Then al of a sudden she now only has a short feed for , say 5 mins and falls asleep on the breast. Then I try to put her down, within 10 mins or so she’s fussing and waking, giving out routing signs. So put her back on the breast and then the cycle repeats for the rest of the night!!

Any ideas on what’s going on? Is this cluster feeding or is she being fussy and just comfort feeding? She’s not taking much in with each of these mini feeds as breast still feels heavy and swollen. Any advice grateful received, as i’m desperate for some sleep at night!! Xx

Add top of that, she now will only settle in my arms!! When I put her down, after 10mins or less she lets out a cry/scream which you can’t ignore!!

My daughter did the same thing at 2 weeks old and my midwife suggested she was having a growth spurt. It lasted a couple of days then she settled again. Now she's nearly 5 weeks and is doing the same thing again! I hope it gets better for you!

My baby boy is 3 weeks old today and I had the exact same thing happen to me about 3/4 nights ago. I literally could have written your post myself! Thought we were finally getting into some sort of routine, he was only waking 2-3 times a night for a nappy change and good feed from both boobs, then all of a sudden it was every 30mins from about 2am right through til 9am, feeding for 5 minutes a time then screaming murder when I put him down again 😩 absolutely exhausting!
Don’t want to jinx things but he seems to have settled again and is back to the longer less frequent feeds, so it does get better! He can still be quite fussy when being put back down but for us it tends to be his bum wind that’s the problem and has been since he was born, maybe your lo could be the same?

This is my life right now too! My daughter is almost 4 weeks and she has been like this for the last couple of weeks. Constant short feeds through the night, falling asleep within minutes and waking/screaming as soon as I try to put her down. She’ll only settle in my arms too. She’s also fussing during feeds - unsure if this is due to fast let down, slow flow, wind/reflux, low supply?! No consistency so difficult to tell what is the cause. I’ve been telling myself it’s a growth spurt - although I seem to use this as a reason for whenever she seems out of sorts! Hope things improve for everybody soon!

It can be perfectly normal. Those night feeds are so crucial for building your supply, even if they're not very long. She's communicating to body about how much milk to make.

My tip - BF lying down and cosleep safely. You can latch her on, let her have her few minutes or however long she needs and close your eyes.

With my DD I spent months sitting up to feed because I was told feeding lying down was wrong (even though the midwives showed me in hospital ) and it's the waking yourself up properly, sitting up, reading etc that makes you so tired. With DS I fed lying down from the start and I haven't felt half as tired, even though I had 2 under 2.

Thank you all for your replies. Never thought about growth spurts and that being the cause. There is so much to learn with this whole baby/child thing!!