Ds is eight weeks old today and I am trying my hardest to bf him.
He only very occasionally opens his mouth wide enough to get a good mouthful of breast (my areola are absolutely huge which doesn't help) and even then he often falls asleep after just a few minutes feeding... I have to tickle his ears, strip him down to his nappy etc just to keep him awake. Still he never comes off by himself, and even if I feed both sides he's certainly not a contented baby.
I got to the point where I would feed as much as I can and then express the rest (only ever an oz or less each time) and feed it him in a bottle so I could be sure he was getting enough. This exhausted me. I have now resigned myself to just constantly feeding during the day.
At night he latches on even less well and basically sucks the nipple. I have tried everything to encourage him to open wider, it just doesn't happen. So I'm sat there for almost an hour, never sure whether or not he's had enough, as he's not proper sucking really.
He produces plenty of wet nappies but poos only about once a week. His weight gain is slow - only a few oz each week (except last week where he put on eight oz but this week we're back to two).
He is never settled between feeds for more than about ten minutes... he then starts crying again, sucking his fingers etc. like he is hungry.
I went to a LLL support group a few times, the woman there checked my latch, said it was fine, said that if he wasn't opening wide enough "he probably wasn't hungry". Which can't be the case in the middle of the night.
I have rung the NCT helpline and got advised to switch feed, which occasionally works in the day, but again, not at night.
What I want to know is, is the above normal behaviour for an eight week old? If not, has anyone else had this experience and if so how did you solve it?
Also if all else fails where can I get someone to actually come and have a look at what I'm doing and explain to me how to do it right? I don't mind paying as if I can't get this sorted soon I'm going to have to pay out for formula milk which is expensive anyway.