BF 3 week old will only settle to sleep on breast - human soother!

[Salire86]

Hi,

Baby is three weeks old and I just started to express milk in the evening to give straight away with a bottle. I had tried getting my partner to give it to her so I could get a few hours sleep but she’s reluctant to take it from him. She will take it from me so we are gradually getting her used to dad holding the bottle.

However, once she has about 90mls drank she’s shouting for more. I would have thought this was a large amount for a small baby. She won’t go asleep for her dad and when I give her the breast for a top up she falls asleep within two mins after barely getting anything.

Has anyone else experienced this? I know it’s very early days but I’m afraid she’s always going to rely on me to go to sleep. If this is the case o don’t think I could maintain breastfeeding. Lately she’s been waking nearly every hour during the night to be fed for less than 10 mins before falling asleep. The exhaustion is getting to me!

Sounds very normal I'm afraid. Mine stopped feeding to sleep around 3 months, but she still does it if she's very tired. In a way, it can be good, because you've got a sure-fire way to calm them down.

It's very tough, but feedings do start to space themselves out. You've sort of got to go with it early on so that breastfeeding can get fully establish (about 6 weeks). It's totally exhausting in the early weeks - I found it completely relentless.

All I can say is that if you want to keep giving breastfeeding a try, you have to solve the problem a different way. Do you have enough support at home? Can you catnap (or even just rest) in the day when the baby does?

Also, it's a really long time when you're living it, but it is just a phase, and it will pass.

It's totally normal. At 3 weeks it's very important to respond to your baby's cues to breastfeed - remember it's not just hunger. She is "putting her order in" so to speak, building up your supply and making sure that she will have enough milk in the future. Not to mention breastfeeding is also for comfort, to bond, to feel safe and so on. I totally get your exhausting and frustration as I have breastfed both my two but the best thing to do is let your baby feed feed feed. You will feel like a milk machine/human dummy but that means you're doing it right! Stock up on cake and biscuits, try to rest between feeds (look up safe co-sleeping as I found with both this really helped) and remember these are very early days. Things will improve!

Please be kind to her, you are all she knows and you make her feel safe. She's only three weeks old, she is just bonding with you,and will with her Dad in time. She isn't going to need to feed to sleep forever, but while she is asking please don't deprive her. Also, as pp said she is putting in her order to get the milk flowing. You might find you have a slow flow, which is why she feeds so frequently or she is just growing lots.

@darlingsweetpea phrases like “please be kind to her” are hardly helpful. My whole world right now revolves around me being kind to her. I’m just trying to figure out how to get enough sleep so I can do the best job I can.

Honestly? If I could turn back time and stop breastfeeding when my baby was your baby’s age I would. She won’t take a bottle and I haven’t had a moment’s rest for 6 months. I know some people are okay with that, but my mental health has suffered. In hindsight I was really naive and just going with the flow... If someone had warned me about bottle refusal I would have stopped after the first few weeks. It becomes really really exhausting and as much as I love my baby I would love a bit more sleep while her dad looks after her for a bit, and I’d love to go to my friend’s hen do this weekend (it’s only a day thing) but I can’t.

Depends on how set on BF you are I guess. If you are really keen to keep going then do, but if you aren’t fussed then there’s no shame in moving on to formula.

Another one saying that's normal 3 week old behaviour. The breast is not just food but comfort and bonding. My dd would take expressed milk but was never satisfied by it from a bottle. At 8 months old I was back at work and she would cluster feed all evening to make up for the lack of time at the breast.
At 3 weeks, your breasts are the centre of her world.
Ds fed to sleep until age 4. With a struggle he could sleep without a feed at 2.5years but that was only because I was ill in hospital.
You are still at the welded to the sofa feeding stage of having a newborn. It gets easier.

Unfortunately the evenings are going to be like that for a while yet. Just at the time when dads get home and you'd love to hand them over, they really need the comfort of bf. I was literally pinned to the sofa under one or both of my twins from 7pm to midnight for at least a couple of months. Just go with it.

Completely normal and just the way it is. Remember it’s not you being a human soother it’s the other way around; dummies are fake nipples. She’s doing exactly what she’s meant to do.

She’s 3 weeks old. She’s meant to rely on you to sleep. There are hormones in it to make that happen. Just roll with it at the moment.

Mine did that until I weaned them- about 18 months. They are independent adults now. Don't worry and just enjoy your baby

Catch up on your sleep during the day.

Yes, as pp said, just go with it. With my first two I spent so long being frustrated by it and their dad trying to soothe them that it caused more stress for us all. With ds I was a single parent from the start with no one else to hold him never mind feed him so I just accepted that this was the way of things and that acceptance made things so much calmer and relaxed. Don't get me wrong, it was very hard especially as I had thrush and another infection in my breasts but the breast seemed to be the answer to everything except a dirty nappy so that's what I did.

Urgh "please be kind to her" is really not helpful in any way. The OP is clearly a caring, thoughtful mum who is finding the newborn stage hard going.

I also found it hard, OP. I have no idea why some people love the newborn stage - it's very tough on your health and your sleep. Be kind to YOURSELF. You can go with the flow at this stage, or switch to formula - you've done brilliantly.

Have you looked up any peer support drop ins in your area, OP? It can be really helpful to talk to people going through the same thing, good and bad.

I think this sounds normal (I bf a long time and tbh as much as it’s mountain climbing and stifling it really came into its own as the ultimate solver of everything as she got older and teething kicked in).

If you want to try a different strategy you may want to try your partner taking over early morning feeds to give you chance to sleep. Evenings are notorious for cluster feeding (this is when their brain is wired to put in their order for what they need you to produce tomorrow) and I wonder if you’re just setting yourselves up for failure with your timings.

Cosleeping is another option if you want to look into how to do it safely. At various points you just have to consider whether the goal or the means of getting there are more important. I didn’t cosleep till I went back to work and getting any sleep trumped everything.

It's perfectly normal so don't worry on that account. As pp said 'she's putting her order in'. But it is not easy. Also, bear in mind that, at her age, her stomach is the approximate size of a walnut. It doesn't stay full for long. Good luck!

My daughter (now four months) is the same, she will only be fed to sleep. I got a co sleeping cot and just roll over or get up when she's asleep!
It is hard work though I agree and puts all the pressure on you, but I think you just have to work around the baby unfortunately! Maybe in time if you keep persisting with a bottle of expressed milk every so often they may get used to it?

Oh also! La Leche League Facebook groups are really really helpful for advice from experts and other mums going through the same problems!

Please ignore the 'please be kind to her' comment it's easy to parrot out unhelpful things like that when you're not the one going through it in that moment.

OP, I'm five months past where you are, you have my full sympathies. It's SO tough when that's all they want. Completely exhausting, draining. With my first it caused me PND, or at least contributed to it. This time around it's been easier purely because I know from experience that it will pass- although it feels like the opposite.

At four months we were only getting sleep in 45-60 minute bursts, after which he'd wake and need feeding back to sleep. Horrendous and everyone was sleep deprived and grumpy. We are slowly getting past it and he will now sleep more independently but it's taken patience and a lot of effort. If I was to redo it, I might have bottle fed from much earlier to share the load and make it easier. If that's not a choice you want to consider (totally reasonably) then I hope it passes quickly. I promise it will be better soon, but you need to do whatever keeps you sane.

I suppose my real question is did people experience this when their baby was small but ended up being able to give a bottle later on? I know the start is hard and I’ll get through that but I’m worried about what a pp said about their baby never taking a bottle. I’d like have the option be away from her in a few months if I need to, we have weddings away during the summer and other plans which won’t be manageable if she needs to be nurses to sleep.

We first tried a bottle of expressed milk around 3 weeks to no avail. Tried again two weeks later and he took it no problem. I'm five months in now so still very fresh in my mind how relentless those first few months are. For me it got better around month 4 when I started bedsharing with baby so I could feed lying down and now don't have to get up at all in the night (unless to change or if he's particularly fussy and needs a cuddle and a rock to sleep rather than feeding). It's not for everyone but may be worth a try to help you get more/better quality sleep at night.

The bottle thing is how long is a piece of string. I breastfed all of mine for between 18 months and 2 years. My eldest would take a bottle with not a bother. Formula, breastmilk, he wasn’t fussed. My 3rd would take a bottle of expressed milk if he had no other option. My middle one would have starved himself rather than take a bottle of anything and he just started drinking from a sippy cup when he started on food.

All 3 of them were fed to sleep for well over 12 months but, equally, all 3 of them went to sleep without it when I wasn’t there. Even the middle one had to get one with it because I was back at work at 10 months.

I had problems getting ebf DS1 to accept a bottle around 5mo. So I started within the first week with a bottle most days with DS2 and DD (twins). They took it reasonably well until DD was about 6 weeks old when she stopped. I think the one issue was that I used to get DH to try and give it around 7-8 PM but it would have been better if he had done it in the mornings when they were less needy. Anyway she was as stubborn as hell but now after some persistence, adores her bottle.
If I could give you one bit of advice - try a soother. Don't expect it to work in the witching hours but it is a bloody useful calming device. DS1 liked his and it made sleep easier. Twins don't... I did try hard but maybe could have done more.

My dd used to have a bottle of formula with her dad once a day (I hated expressing) from about eight weeks but randomly stopped accepting it around six months when we started weaning. She would drink from a sippy cup at that point though.

My DD was very similar at that age. I was advised to offer a bottle of expressed milk very early by public health nurse as she hadn't gained much weight one week. She was reluctant at first but kept persisting, offering tiny amounts at first and gradually building up. I had to try a couple of different brands and one thing I found helped was pouring hot water on the teat before offering it so it was slightly warm. She is now 7 months and takes a bottle no problem.