How to know baby wants feeding at night

[Charlottef94]

I have a 2 week old who I’ve been struggling to BF since the start and don’t feel like he’s getting enough milk despite good latch- I’ve been instructed to feed then pump 10 mins straight after every feed.

I've been trying to wake him every 2/3 hours at night to feed however sometimes he is passed out and other times he wriggles and grunts while asleep.

How do you know your baby wants a feed at night? Do they cry? I’m so tired atm I’m sure I’m sleeping through some of the rustling and grunting. Not sure if this is making the problem worse as sometimes he goes 4 hrs with no feed due to not waking/wanting it.

Sorry I mean to say - keep going if you want to! No worries if you don't, you can always look at other ways to feed (it won't matter in 2 years time when all they want to eat is biscuits anyway)

@Charlottef94 sorry to ask on your post but how are you getting your baby to sleep for so long in the night that you need to wake them? Do you have any tips? Mines the same age and she slept for 4 hours last night in 1 hour Windows. I'm struggling!

Bloody hell. This thread probably didn’t do anything to help OP with all the contradictory answers and posters acting like the other opinion is wrong.

OP, this is one where you need to follow your midwife’s advice rather than strangers on the internet. Someone who had a healthy newborn who is gaining and feeding well can take a more relaxed attitude compared to someone who doesn’t have a great supply, whose newborn isn’t gaining fast enough, and so on. Your midwife will know which route to follow as she’s the one monitoring your newborn, so please ask her.

From what you’ve said, it does sound like you’re in the category of needing to wake every 3 hours or so for a feed. Sometimes newborns can happily feed whilst half asleep so you might not need to actively wake but simply offer boob, but sometimes they need to be fully awake before willing to feed. But do ask your midwife. And also bear in mind that a 2 week old is very different to an 8 week old, and sometimes when talking about a newborn, people can forget what they did in those very early days and only think about their older newborn and what they did then.

Is your baby back to birthweight yet?

If not, I would be waking regularly to try and get some milk into them.

Did you have a traumatic delivery or lose a lot of blood if you don't mind me asking? I'm only asking because I haemorrhaged with my first and was severely anaemic afterwards for a long time. I fed and fed my baby constantly, asked for help latching, got tongue tie snipped etc, did everything I could for 7 weeks and DC still wasn't past his birth weight. Most stressful time of my life, I got told I was missing feeding cues and not feeding him enough despite him feeding CONSTANTLY.

Turned out I was producing milk but not fatty enough milk due to my body trying to repair itself. Very common if you've lost a lot of blood. Baby put on a pound a week once I switched to formula and thrived.

Ask your midwife, health visitor or GP. Since there are weight gain issues, concerns about supply and baby is still very young this isn’t a time to take advice of internet randoms. Newborns that aren’t feeding enough can be very sleepy and it’s not a given that they’ll let you know by waking up and crying, and sometimes you will need to feed them on a schedule, I had to with DD1 due to jaundice. So I would ask a medical professional what you should be doing. Given it’s now Saturday and it might be hard to speak to someone before Monday absolutely err on the side of caution and continue to wake her to feed.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I’ve been persevering with waking him every 2.5-3hrs as he’s still not at his birthweight - however after the first night waking up at 2am he tends to be awake fussing, and me feeding him trying to satisfy him, until 5/6am every night so I lose track of the 3 hour windows. It’s honestly a nightmare and I’m seriously considering switching to formula as he isn’t getting what he needs to be a content happy or healthy baby breastfeeding currently. Unsure why my milk isn’t enough for him but definitely think it’s the case / or he can’t efficiently feed from the breast. He’s been checked for tongue tie already by a private lactation consultant and I’m seeing another one on Wednesday.

You can always top up with formula. I have insufficient supply and my baby kept losing weight, I now give the breast first followed by a bottle of formula.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other, is what I’m meaning to say.

Thanks @Cinai2 ! Do you give the formula straight after? I find as he’s awake for best part of an hour on a breastfeed, to then make and feed him a bottle straight after you’d again hit the end of the two hour feed window and be back at square one again…

Yes, I had exactly the same problem! Because he wasn’t getting enough from the breast, he would stay on forever and we’d go from one feed into the next. I now limit the time on each breast to 15-20 minutes, so approx 30 minutes breastfeeding followed by 15 minutes bottle feeding and 10-15 minutes burping, and then he’s ready to go back to sleep and we’d start the next feed about 2.5 hours after. He’s very settled since we do this, and putting on weight as he should.

I think that’s just normal behaviour @Charlottef94 don’t look for problems that aren’t there. I always say to keep going to 6 weeks, they change so much in that window you won’t recognise it to now. The fussiness is all part of supply boosting, it doesn’t mean anything is wrong. As long as the nappies are normal and there is weight gain it’s all good.

It’s very easy to convince yourself breastfeeding isn’t working. It usually is but you have to have a bit of confidence. I’d bet my house in the fact your milk is absolutely fine, it’s just getting settled and baby fussing and constantly on/off feeding for hours is a normal part of it sometimes.

I gave my (mildly) jaundiced baby formula top ups. I would breastfeed for 45 minutes, with a change of nappy half way to wake her up. Then, if she still seemed hungry (crying, rooting), partner would give between 15-50ml of formula - basically until she stopped sucking the bottle.

You can also gently blow on their faces to keep them awake during feeds; or gently tickle their ears.

You can give formula top ups to help get through this part and go back to EBF if you want to in a week or two.

At 2 weeks my baby needed waking every 3h day and night. She had to be striped down to her nappy to wake her up each time she wouldn't wake for feeds. She was only just at birth weight.
Between 2 and 3 weeks she started waking during the day so we stopped waking her then but kept with the 3h wake ups overnight until 3 weeks then 4h alarms until 4 weeks by which point she woke at least every 3h.