My baby isn't even a week old yet but he's just finished phototherapy as he was badly jaundiced.
During this time he was incredibly sleepy and just refused my boob. I want to exclusively breastfeed and stressed this to the midwives so we came up with a plan where we'd try my breasts first but I've had no choice but to top up with formula. Well it isn't even a top up as he's getting zilch from me! But I did this based on the formula flushing out the jaundice so he'd be less sleepy and want to feed!
While he's been under the lamp I've been doing all I can to keep my breasts stimulated and it's paid off as my milk has started to come in now, though not enough to express full bottles yet.
He's off the lamp now and his bilirubin levels have come right down but he's still incredibly sleepy and struggling to get him to suckle once latched. He just seems to keep it in his mouth and not do anything.
The only way he'll feed is if he's wide awake and totally alert which happened one evening and we managed to actively feed for 45 minutes.
I'm about to spend my 4th night in hospital and obviously just want to get home but they won't let me until feeding is established and I'm worried about falling into a top up trap or him getting jaundiced again.