Bf baby crying from hunger, what do I do?

[fromheretomaternity]

I'm bf'ing a three week old. He is a hungry chap and will feed for an hour at a time, 30 mins each side.

In the mornings all goes well, he has that satisfied sleepy look on his face after a feed and goes off to sleep. But I just did a 1pm feed lasting an hour or so, he was squirming and sucking but I'm sure both breasts were empty by the end, nipples were dry and no milk visible in his mouth. After the feed he cried really hard, was turning his head to the side, eating his hand etc, obviously still hungry.

What should I do? It had been 4 hrs since his previous feed, did I leave it too long? I am trying to do a feed right now (started 3pm) but worried I'll have the same problem, surely milk won't have regenerated yet? If he is still hungry after this, is it time to give a formula top up? Can't be good to have baby crying from hunger all day, also it means I can't sleep which must be bad for milk prodection.

What i don't understand is, why does any one care whether it's colostrum or milk the baby is getting? I never had any idea when my milk "came in", just latched the baby on and hoped for the best. My ds didn't feed at all for the first 15 hours (except v short suck when first born) and no one was concerned about that - I offered every time he was awake, but he wasn't interested.

I agree EW.
I think it is easy to over analyse the situation, which,while interesting, is often not ultimately useful.

Fromhere,you are doing great and i hope you have it clear in your head now that there is always milk in oyur breasts and that introducing formula more often than not can upset the delicate supply/demand situation.

Now the following is just a personal observation but i had a very very sucky baby and sometimes it drove me mad. On one or two occasions when,hand on heart,I knew she had drunk loads, asnd I just couldn't take anymore,I would take her off the breast for a bit and go for a walk or put her in a sling.

Even if she went back on a while later,I had had a break and felt a bit more in control.I don't believe she ever relinquished a nipple willingly unlike ds who let go the moment he had had his fill.

Chin up,we all know it is hard work but you are doing brilliantly.

moondog, I am noticing with DS he is a very sucky baby too. He already gets fretful or wakes up when he has stopped and is removed, only to suck two or three times and go back to sleep or just hold my nipple in his mouth.
I'm pretty sure that some of the time it is a comfort thing to have the nipple there, rather than to feed, only problem is it can be hard to know whther he just needs some form of comforting or actually wants to feed.
(obviously with him being 8days old I offer him breast whenever he wants it but I am looking forward to when I am at the stage I know he doesnt need it!)