Jaundice/sleepy baby/breastfeeding - please help!

[mwro]

Hi! i really hope someone can help or give me some answers.

My DS is one week old. He has jaundice (but not so bad that he has to go under the lamp). He is feeding roughly every 3 hours (and sleeping well inbetween) and there is no doubt that I have a lot of milk.

The thing is he is taking over an hour to do each feed and I am constantly prodding him etc to keep him awake so he will eat. A lot of the time he seems to be sucking as opposed to eating. I don't have nipple pain and I am fairly sure he is latched on correctly.

He hasn't recovered his birth weight yet (was told he should do that within a week or 10 days of birth) and I don't think he has at least 5 dirty nappies a day ( more like 3). My breasts are always hard and full before i start feeding him and although they feel softer afterwards, they don't feel empty or nearly empty. I am doing one breast per feed to ensure he gets hind milk.

Because of his weight, lack of dirty nappies and my breasts not feeling empty as well as te fact he takes ages to feed, I am fairly sure he is not taking the milk from me.

Can anyone help and perhaps give me some answers?? Did you have a similar experience and it all worked out fine?

Thank you so much - I'm getting a bit desperate.

I know how you feel but in the long run bottlefeeding is sooooo much more of a hassle. Think of middle of the night feeds - having to get up and prepare/warm a bottle, always remembering to take it all with you when you go out.
Breastfeeding is difficult at the beginning as I'm sure you remember from your first but so worth it.Keep going and good luck!

Oh Mwro, poor you. I had the exact same thing with DD and it was just so physically and emotionally draining. Sounds like you are doing an amazing job. The thing that really helped me in the end was the sling thing and just keeping DD with me all the time so that the minute she showed any signs of wanting a feed I could pick up on them. Also a lot of skin to skin contact. Good luck!

Thanks for being so supportive everyone - think you'll all great!!

sorry... YOU'RE all great!

I thought I would just add to my old thread rather than start a new one. I am now giving DS expressed breast milk and formula milk. During the day I am expressing every 2 or 2 1/2 hours or so and at night every 3 or 4 hours. I must confess that I have only been expressing at night for the last couple of nights as I've had a terrible cold and decided I really needed to get some sleep at night. In your experience, can all this expressing increase milk supply and how long does that take?

Before someone asks, I am not putting DS on my breast as 1. am paranoid about how he is eating, 2. my supply is v low (and DS is now wanting at least 100ml every 3 or 4 hours) and 3. i cannot sit all day with DS at my breast.

I'm really hoping my supply will increase as feel incredibly guilty about giving DS formula milk and am scared about being judged by other mums

Right, I'm not an expert, but you've already said that the baby is the best way to stimulate your milk supply. You now know how many wet/drity nappyies DS has. Could you try and BF and monitor this to reassure?

But ultimately I think you need to forget what everyone else might/might not may think and do what is best for you all.

mwro - why do so many of us do it.. worry about judgements that others make?!!

If you want to up the supply, please get baby back on the boobs as it should do the trick. From what I remember it took a few days or so for body to adjust when baby needed more milk I do know how time consuming it can be at times and oops, have forgotton how old your baby is, but mine is 9wks tomorrow and he is much better at getting what he wants in a feed now, so they are much shorter these days.

I mix feed too, EBM once/twice a week and a formula bottle as a last feed before I sleep. At one point (infact lots of points!) I have nearly jacked the whole bf in, one of those points was when I thought my supply was low, so I used those boobs and now I feel I have too much milk to stop feeding ds2!

You are doing really well, not sure how I would cope having a crappy cold too, but I really do recommend getting baby on the boobs. Some people may suggest getting a sling, as was once recommended to myself, but to be honest I am a bit hopeless, I looked into it and then thought I would never know what one to get, so have not gone down that route of buying one and am also paranoid that no sling would fit!

Martha - when did you think your supply was low? How long did it take you to get a good supply up? And how often was the baby on your boob? As I mentioned, I cannot have him on my boob 24/7 because of my other baby.

My supply is realy low - sometimes I only get 40ml from both boobs (not from each boob) when expressing

And even if i have him on my boob, wouldn't i have to express after each feed to ensure my breasts are drained?

Oh - my baby is 4 weeks today.

sorry I might be being really stupid, but why do you need to ensure the breast is drained by expressing? Also by the time you express the milk could you not be offering a (breast)feed?

expressing isn't any guide to supply! my friend who has bf for literally years and years so no worries with supply has always struggle to express a bottle. also you DO not need to empty your breasts by expressing.

Sorry that I am joining you so late... I have been here 4 times.

First, let me say that you must be doing a fabulous job for your son to be back at his birth weight!

Tiktok was really there for me 2 years ago when I was really fretting about DD2 and she is right about the LLL.

It took me over a week to get dd2 to be content with only the breast after my having reluctantly fed her from a bottle for fear of having her become more jaundiced. She is our fourth and was born in New York City miles from friends and family so I needed the support.

I remember the faff of feeding, expressing, and offering the bottle before washing and sterilizing the lot every 2 1/2 hours. I would just get to sleep after one session before the next would begin BUT two years down the road and the baby that I thought would never be content breastfeeding is being a monkey to wean! It really will improve as your supply increases to meet your son's demands.

You are an amazing mum for sticking with it and you will find the confidence to breastfeed with time.

I second what Total Chaos said. My SIL is a LLL consultant and has exclusively breastfed her 5 babies and cannot express a single drop. She marvels at how I am able to express a full feed in only minutes. Everyone is different and babies are far more efficient than a pump.