TIKTOK et al please give your opinion!

[NewBabyStillBelowBirthWeight]

I exclusively bf new baby for a few days, till day 4 when baby had lost more than 10% of birthweight. Weight loss stabilized day 5 and increased by 20 g on day 6. The problem seemed to be that DD fell asleep on the breast. I was put under pressure to change to formula (refused) and agreed to pump milk 8 times a day to establish milk production was ok ( c 30 -70 ml per session) and top up breast milk with formula to 90ml per feeding. I was told NOT to breast feed at all, pending health visitor visit tomorrow. I am using a cup rather than bottle in hope of re-establising bfeeding.

Please, was the advice I was given good? Were there no other alternatives? Pumping and cup feeding take all of my time, with barely any to sleep unless I give only formula. My toddler is also being very difficult which is hard to deal with right now,

How can I help DD gain weight? To top it all she has had diarohea since we can home.

It can take bf babies up to 2 weeks to regain birth weight (or so I thought) I know they were amazed that dd2 had regained all her birthweight in a week.

Feed feed feed, expressing does not get out as much baby feeding.

Really bumping for the experts.....

How heavy was your baby at birth often large babies catch down and end up at a lower centile than they started off at.

The advice I had was to put baby to the breast as often as possibile, particularly in the early days, and avoid expressing until 6 weeks as it could interfere with supply. Apparetnly it's the baby that stimulates supply and exclusively pumping may end up diminshing supply.

And my DD regained her birth weight only after 5 weeks and she's fine.

please tell what you baby weighed at birth, lowest weight and current weight.

how many wet and pooey nappies are you getting - colour of poo is also significant

how long are feeds lasting and baby's behaviour during and after feeds.

how long are the intervals between feeds (guage from the start of a feed to the start of another - if say 10 mins later you put baby back on, then count those 2 feeds as one)

also what are the state of your nipples.

also what kind of birth and what his behaviour was like in the first few days

Hi, I'm not an expert like tiktok, but I do know a fair bit about breastfeeding...
One thing I know is that babies can extract milk from the breast much more efficiently than any pump can, so the best way to boost supply is to breastfeed.
Ho old is your dd now? And how much does she weigh? Dd2 was a large baby (9lb 5oz) and took 5 weeks to regain her birth weight. Dd1 was smaller (8lb 3oz) and took 4 weeks. Both were exclusively breastfed.
Many women find a good way to boost supply is to have a "babymoon" when you spend as much time as possible in bed with your baby, feeding, with lots of skin-to-skin contact.
Have you tried ringing one of the breastfeeding advice lines, such as the NCT or LLL? They are staffed by volunteer experts and are available for anyone to use - you don't have to be a member (and they're free). The volunteers on these helplines tend to know much, much more about breastfeeding than the majority of midwoives/health visitors (IMO).
And also wanted to add... she's your baby. If you want to breastfeed her, do so. Don't let anyone bully you into using formula or only ever expressing milk if that's not what you want.
And last of all.... tips to help baby stay awake include undressing her so she's a bit cooler or stroking the palm of her hand when she starts nodding off (this latter pone always worked well for me).
HTH.

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FGS if you want to continue BFing then DON'T listen to advice not to feed until HV visits.

Feed as often as possible, now is the period during which your baby's sucking is establishing your supply of milk.

I'm sure you will get lots of expert advice soon, keep posting!

Message withdrawn

Oh dear, I am so sad to read about this - whatever the situation, you have had terrible support. I can't tell from your figures if there was an issue with your dd's weight but if there was, the right response would be to ensure she was able to feed effectively and frequently, and/or to ensure she got breastmilk into her somehow. Sometimes babies can be quite poorly by day 4 if bf has been very ineffective, so it may well have been appropriate to take action....but not at the expense of supporting your breastfeedng.
You need a lot of support, and 24 hour help with your toddler.
Please do call one of the breastfeeding helplines and talk to someone.

The fact you were told not to bf makes me think your dd was very poorly and they were worried about bf making her tired????

the diarrhoea - is this not the normal, soft yellow poo of the bf baby? If she really has diarrhoea, you need to see a doctor or midwife asap.

Hope you get the right sort of help.

Just to add, that it may not be true in this case that the baby gets out more than the pump - of course this is true for a healthy, effectively feeding baby, but please, people, don't extrapolate from this to every baby.

If we're sure milk transfer is good, then yes, bf. If we aren't sure it is good, then expressing alongside bf may be needed.

It's not clear what the situation is with the OP.

TikTok, thank you for responding, I`ve always had the impression you give sound advice. DD has not been ill at all, on the contrary, she was an easy birth 10/10 apgar rating and I´m told she is very alert etc.

The problem started on Day 4 when the paediatrician said she had lost a bit more than 10% of birth weight and could be in danger of dehydration. The doctor and midwives suggested I give formula and that I was not producing enough milk. I objected to formula (which was then subsequently mixed with expressed milk against my wishes, apparantly due to communication problem) and was seen to be unreasonable. I sugested increasing feedings and supplementry pumped milk for 24 hours and see if weight improved. Day 5 weight had stabilized and doctor still not happy. I was told to exclusively pump and make up that amount to a 90 ml bottle. Which I did. the next day had a 20 g weight gain and we were allowed home.

NOw I want to know what is the best way forward and if this weight loss is really significant after all. Did they panic? Should I have just continued bfeeding and pumping extra?

Thank you

Sorry, milk transfer seems ok, only problem that DD sleeps a lot thru feedings, whether bfed, formula or pumped milk

How heavy was your dd when she was born?

my ds was 8lb 15 (4.08kg) at birth - and lost over a pound post birth - essentialy becaseu he had been an overley heavy baby at birth.

Fortunately, I got lots of support at the hospital and subesequnetly (althugh the only support I ever sought was via the breast feeding counsellor midwives at the maternity hospitla! ), so I was never under any pressure to give him formula.

He did have early problems which probably contributed to the significant weight drop - jaundice which required light therapy, diagnosed at 2 days - but even afterwards he was a sleepy baby who took ages to feed and gained weight extremely slowly.

He took c.7 weeks to regain his birthweight!

But to be fair on the support I got, I was always envouraged. The first thing they did was loan me a hospital breast pump and initially I "topped up" his feeds with EBM. Then for a while I was giving him every second feed as EBM, so I could see he was getting plenty. I was also waking him up at night to feed him - he wanted to sleep through at only 2 weeks old! . None of these strategies made any appreciable difference to his very slow wieght gain, so it was eventually decided that he was just following his own growh curve and I was told by the consutlant paediatrician to "stop the faff of expressing" and just enjoy my baby.

It's a shame you don't seem to have got as supportive advice.

Rule of thumb (not really evidence-based) in the UK and elsewhere is that babies can lose up to 10 per cent off their birthweight in the first days without it indicating a problem. It's as useful a rule as any, and a baby losing more than this probably does need checking over to see that feeding is going ok. In fact effectively feeding babies don't usually lose as much as this, and every mother needs to know the signs of effective feeding which are more than just what the scales say. So a baby who's lost more than 10 per cent (weighed naked, on digital scales not spring balance) does flag up the possibility that feeding needs fixing - but formula is almost certainly not necessary unless the baby is actually already ill or dehydrated.

TikTok, thank you for responding, I`ve always had the impression you give sound advice. DD has not been ill at all, on the contrary, she was an easy birth 10/10 apgar rating and I´m told she is very alert etc.

You say: "I sugested increasing feedings and supplementry pumped milk for 24 hours and see if weight improved" Very sensible. In addition, someone who knew what to look for should have observed a feed.

"Day 5 weight had stabilized and doctor still not happy."

I don't know why - stabilisation is good!

" I was told to exclusively pump and make up that amount to a 90 ml bottle. Which I did. the next day had a 20 g weight gain and we were allowed home." Your baby had started to gain - great stuff. Would be useful to have a weight now, so you could say your way forward to just direct bf, with no expressing.

" Did they panic? "
It sounds more that they don't know how to fix a less than perfect bf situation.

"Should I have just continued bfeeding and pumping extra?" On the basis of what you say, I can't see why not.

BTW - again, if she really does have diarrhoea, you need to see a doc asap.

BTW - part of ds' "problem", once the initial sleepiness due to the jaundice had been sorted - was that he was still quite a sleepy baby (but happy and alert when he was awake! ). I had to struggle to wake him to feed him - all sort of ploys like undressing him, tickling his feet, wiping his face with cold damp cottonwool.... dripping cold water into his ear - that he learnt to pretend to be feeding, right down to the wiggling ear, so that the "hassle" stopped . It was only later that we realised he wasn't actually swallowing anything! .

That was part of the thinking behind giving him everty second feed as EBM, so that we could monitor what he was having And as he got older and slept less (newborns do sleep a lot) then he got better at feeding directly off me.

Just to keep you updated, I realised today that the hospital had made a mistake with their figures. DD had NEVER lost too much weight after all. This was confirmed by a midwife at the hospital.

This was not an NHS hospital by the way.

This is shocking. I hope you are managing ok now?

well you can ditch the expressing and get back to bf with a vegence. Hope you are okay - I'd be so mad if I were you!

Mixed between being furious and relieved at the moment, and uncertain re how to proceed. Midwife recommends expressing a couple of days more with some bfeeding - rationale that DD is a lazy feeder anyway so will find it easier when I have more milk. Hopeful that exclusive bfeeding can be re-established. Any hints on how to increase supply?

I think ditch the bottles/expressing and baby moon - lots of skin to skin contact, co-sleeping, offering breast regularly. Hopefully tiktok will be along soon to tell you what to do - is there any info on kellymom site or la leche league?

Feed her as much as she wants. Express inbetween times, let her have some but also freeze sme for later usage. That way you are forcing encouraging your body to roduce more milk, so when she is ready to take every feed as a "roper" feed, you will have a plentiful suply - plus supplies in reserve, should you wish to have a night out with dh at a later date!