One-week-old baby, never latched - advice?

[Morred]

My baby will be a week old tomorrow (born late evening). He’s never successfully latched directly onto the breast. In hospital they gave me nipple shields as a last resort and he does sometimes latch through those.

I am currently expressing and syringe feeding every 3 hours, and also putting him to the breast “before” each feed. He’ll root about and try to latch but never does. Several midwives including the breastfeeding consultant have observed and they all say I’m doing everything right and just keep trying and he’ll get it soon, but I don’t know how much longer I can.

It doesn’t help that he’s very sleepy so doesn’t often even show interest in trying to latch, but just goes back to sleep. I am doing skin to skin and have tried to encourage the “nipple crawl” but he falls asleep.

And advice? I don’t see how I can get to a group and pump/feed every three hours. A midwife is coming back tomorrow.

My elder daughter was very sleepy when she was first born. A combination of being a bit early (born at just before 39 weeks), mildy jaundiced and just that some babies are a bit sleepy when they’re first born I think. Anyway her latch was poor until she was about 2 weeks and she suddenly just woke up (and has never willingly gone to sleep in the four years since!)

My midwife advised spending that first bit of tile in bed with a box set doing skin to skin and it definitely helped with feeding. Did that mainly for around the first month and by then feeding was easy.

Have they checked for a tongue tie?? Maybe worth a look.

I’d be really quite concerned that he’s still sleepy and not latching at all even with shields. What are his nappies like? Wet and poo? What is his weight like? When was he last weighed? Was he delivered in hospital: can you call the ward you were discharged from?

Yep, as a previous poster said, get him checked for a tongue tie. My DD had one and just could not latch at all.

How much is he taking from the syringe? Is it possible that he's not getting enough to drink at the moment, and that's contributing to his sleepiness? I'd expect a baby of that age to be on volumes big enough to switch to cup feeding at this point, up to 65mls or so for a 3.5kg baby.

He’s doing regular wet nappies. Weighed yesterday and lost nearly 10% so he’s on feeding plan of 30ml expressed milk every 3hrs. Midwife did all his day 5 checks yesterday and said he looked v healthy.

He can’t be on me all the time because I have to pump and then try to get some sleep in. He’s had about an hour skin-to-skin today.

And he's not latching/getting anything directly from the breast, so the 30mls is all he's getting? If you're able to express more, and up it to 40 or 50ml, then that wouldn't cause any harm, and might give him some more energy. If you keep expressing for a couple of minutes after the milk has stopped flowing, that will help your breasts get the message to increase supply. I would still stick to a feed every 3 hours, so 8 feeds in 24 hours, even with larger volumes. If you fix the sleepiness and he still won't latch, then I'd ask the MW/HV for a referral to the infant feeding lead for more specialist advice re tongue ties etc. And there are plenty of BF helplines, so don't feel you need to go to a support group to get more advice - you can do it from the comfort of your sofa!

You're doing an amazing job to have been expressing and syringe feeding so well for so long! You must be exhausted. Make sure there's someone looking after you as well. And sorry I haven't said already, congratulations on the birth of your son.

I would say check check and double check for tongue tie and if he has it take some action ASAP

Also try and do more skin to skin. I think we probably did about 5 hours at that age.

I had this with DD (who was 4 weeks early); she was also jaundiced, sleepy, couldn't latch & lost 10% of her body weight.

I expressed for a month, but unfortunately my supply did not increase. I could not get to the support group at the hospital (couldn't drive after emcs). I was getting 20mls from my right boob, so had to top up with formula.

I just never got anywhere beyond that & was caught in this awful cycle of expressing, trying to BF night & day. Plus I had a 4 year old (who was getting no attention). I was literally going mad with it & made the decision to stop.

I was so upset to make the decision, but it was the right thing as I wasn't enjoying DD (just stressing about not being able to BF), neglecting DS & I'd not left the house in a month.

I hope things work out for you OP, but don't drive yourself mad in the process. Be kind to yourself & accept you are doing your best.

Dthanks, everyone. Will try and increase supply and see if I can have more skin to skin too. We strip him for every feed and get a good 15 mins each time then as well as the longer “non-feeding” skin to skin.

Sounds like he needs specialist to check for tongue tie

Maybe feed a bit with the syringe FIRST, and THEN try to get him to latch? The first 2 weeks my daughter was also really sleepy and weak and needed a bit of a milk-jolt to have the energy and strength to latch (we would give her 10mL formula before each breastfeeding session, as I hadn’t yet found the courage to pump!) Once latched, she was also inclined to doze, so I’d have to blow air on her face and sometimes I also had to enlist my husband to tickle her feet and rouse her with a wet washcloth. We got there eventually! Good luck, OP.

This might sound odd but my midwife told me to blow gently on my babies face if he was sleepy during a feed to get him to latch. I thought she was bonkers but it worked!

We did this for just over two weeks as she was super sleepy from jaundice.

Pleased to say that once she got back to birth weight she just woke up and started to get it. She was on 28mls every 3 hours as prescribed by the doctor so amounts sound ok to me. Just persevere and hopefully you'll get there. My daughter first latched at 2wks4days and is going strong at 4 months now :-)

Good luck and congrats

The same thing happened me with DS. I was syringe and cup feeding him. I was adamant that I wouldn't try a bottle as I feared nipple confusion. Midwife suggested that I try one bottle of expressed milk to encourage his suckle. In desperation, I tried this when he was a few days old. He latched on to the breast with a nipple shield after this. Ended up having to give a few more expressed bottles over the next day or so. By one week old he was exclusively breastfeeding without a nipple shield. Worth a try maybe

Nipple confusion is a myth apparently.

How are you getting on, @Morred ?