If you had a sleepy baby that fell asleep at the breast

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How long did it take for breastfeeding to improve and what helped?

Ds is not gaining weight and constantly falls asleep as soon as my nipple is in his mouth.
At the MW's suggestion, I am switch feeding and expressing, using breast compressions and doing all that I can to keep him awake but wondered how long I am likely to be doing this before I see an improvement in how well he feeds.

Thanks

My girl was like this. Would wake hungry but as soon as she was put on the breast she'd fall asleep. When she woke again she be so hungry it was really difficult to get her to latch. In my case poor latch was the problem which in turn meant reduced supply as she wasn't building it. I ended up combi feeding a bit of breast, expressed and formula. How are you getting on as its been a few weeks since you posted?

How old is the baby? This is critical.

DS1 and I had a rough first 3-4 days for this reason. I syringe fed colostrum and did formula topups until he was a bit more alert and the milk was flowing more easily - say 5 days. I also did a lot of stripping him, tickling his feet etc to keep him awake. Once they're out of the first few days, they should really be able to stay awake long enough to take in a decent feed unless blood sugar is getting low.

How old is baby? My DS is 3 weeks, it’s very normal for them to fall asleep at the breast. I change his nappy between breasts. I’d suggest expressing and using a syringe in your case as well.

Switch feeding is tedious and tiring but in my experience of 3, it is a better route than all this business about stripping down and changing nappies. Which I have also done, but in hindsight I think it takes up too much time.
If weight is a problem I would definitely recommend getting a bit of formula or expressed milk syringed in. They do need to take in enough in order to wake up and feed and gain. I had to do that with all 3.

You should be on the right track about 4 weeks in I'd imagine.