24 hour weighing - lost again. What shall I do?

[AlienLady]

Midwife came yesterday - Day 5. DD lost 10% of her weight
Midwife came today and she lost a further 0.3g.
I have been trying to feed her every 3 hours since yesterday.
She seems sleepy today and not that bothered so I’ve had to strip her just to get her to take some milk. Midwife wanted me to give her a top of expressed milk so I got my haaka out and tried expressing for the first time. I got only 10ml out of my left breast. What do I do? It’s my birthday today as well and I am so upset as I thought I was doing a good job. Do I do a formula top up and how?

Hi op im not a midwife so i can only speak from personal experience so feel free to ignore this!

i have 6 children breastfed until 2+ years for 5 of them. What you are going through sounds totally normal to me for the first week or two. If you baby is having wet nappies etc she wont be dehydrated. When she is constantly on the nipple she is increasing your supply - the more she sucks the more you will produce and it sounds like thats whats happening. The problem with expressing and top ups is they will interrupt this process. It is totally totally normal for a young breastfed baby to be constantly wanting to suckle both for supply building and comfort and cluster feeds in the early hours are also really normal and a good sign your baby lnows what shes doing!
i remember being awake hours just holding a baby who seemed to be on and off on and off my boob! Its hard but its totally normal.

having said that if you do decide to switch to formula or mixed feeding then it is seriously not the end of the world - my last baby was only breastfed for 5 weeks because i got pnumonia and sepsis and ended up in hospital not able to feed her. At the time o was horrified but you know what shes 9 now and theres no difference in her to my others it hasnt affected our relationship and tbh it just doesnt seem like a big deal now.

i hope all that helps!

It’s normal to feed a lot at night. The milk is more nutritious overnight. Every time you put your dd to the breast, you are increasing supply.

Depends how passionate you are about ebf
This was me a couple weeks ago he lost 12.6% they readmitted me to maternity ward for a night I used the hospital grade pump offered breast and 50ml of expressed every 3 hours and on demand jn between. Soon as I was discharged I rented out a medala hospital grade pump I couldn't of managed without that but I was very headstrong about not using formula

This sounds very normal for a baby only a few days old. And a good sign in terms of her latching on and feeding, and it will also be increasing your supply. I'd still see if you can have someone check her latch to make sure it's good, but if you can see her swallowing and sucking it's a good sign.

It's totally fine to decide you don't want this though. You have the formula there, you know she takes the bottle, so go with the breastfeeding as much as you want to, safe in the knowledge that if it gets too much you can switch to formula straight away.

Morning, OP
How did the rest of the night go? I hope you managed some sleep? It's pretty standard when establishing bf'ing and during growth spurts for them to feed pretty much all night. DD's longest marathon was 25 hours when she was 3 weeks old. She gained 8oz in weight that week!
Establishing bf'ing is such a steep learning curve for you and your DD. And it can be brutal on your nipples. If it is too painful or uncomfortable, then do some more mixed feeding or completely switch to formula. Your baby won't know or care now or in the future how she is fed. My DC1 is now a teen and at school with a boy from our NCT group. DC1 was ebf; he was ff from day two. They got the exact same mark in the 11+, both represent the county at the same sport and have so many other parallels in their life that it always amuses me to think about how so much pressure and emotion can be tied into bf'ing when it really doesn't matter in the long term. I also remember how much more fun my friend had on mat leave as her DH could do some of the night feeds, she could leave her baby with family & friends and go out. Her experience was totally different to mine. You have already done a brilliant job giving your DD the benefits of colostrum. If you can carry on, that will be great and, if you can't that will also be great.
Take care of yourself and your gorgeous baby girl

You ok OP?

Morning everyone.
Thank you you all for replies.
Everytime I put DD down last night, she would want to breastfeed again. She stopped about 2am. I wasn’t able to express much.
i woke her up again at 4:30 and she pretty much breastfed until 6:30am. I expressed about 10 ml.
I have just woken her up as it’s been 3 hours and she wanted a feed.

With DS1, I couldn’t breastfeed as I got sepsis and he was tongue tied. My milk was just not enough so I had to do formula. He would constantly be hungry and I was constantly making bottles. He thrived though, however he got RSV at 7 months and was hospitalised. He has had a rocky road with health until he was 4, and everytime he was in hospital, I got asked if he was breastfed which made me feel like a failure.

I thought once I cracked breastfeeding, it’d be easy or easier but obviously not. I don’t know much about it. I didn’t know I had to wake my baby up every 3 hours. I didn’t know that I had to offer both boobs. I now feel like we are in this position because of me again.

I am not sure what I want long term. Combi feed? How do I successfully do that so she only has one bottle of formula and rest breast milk?

It was lovely last time with DS as my husband used to give me a night off and formula fed him and loved feeding him. He can’t really do that now.

I don’t seem to get a lot of expressed milk for me to create a stash.

It’s a confusing time.

Morning!
Cluster feeding is really positive. It means baby is growing and trying to increase your milk supply. Don't think of it as baby not getting enough and that's why they feed excessively. It's because they are ensuring sufficient future supplies! If you think about puppies or kittens they spend hours and hours feeding in the early days, and no one thinks the mum should just be feeding for 20 mins every 4 hours.

I would say it takes probably 6 weeks to get breastfeeding established, and after that it's super easy (in my experience). By then you are through the sore nipples, positioning and cluster feeding evenings (most of them). It's so much easier than bottle feeding in terms of constant, instant food and comfort. Having said that, I found the responsibility weighed heavy and my first baby was mixed fed.

I never got much via expressing. I obviously produced enough as my babies grew well (one from 9lb at birth to 19 pounds at 4 months! And yet I could only express one or two Oz at a time. I didn't love the express machine like I loved my babies and my let down was much poorer. If I took baby off the breast during established feeding let down, milk would be literally squirting out!)

The best resource I found for proper advice on breastfeeding was kellymom.com, have a good read of the info, it's incredibly reassuring and informative.
https://kellymom.com/

I think the night you describe sounds very normal for a breastfed baby of less than a week old.

Get her weighed again in a couple of days and if she's gaining again then you can be assured she's getting enough and keep going.

But it's also totally fine to decide you don't want to. Breastfeeding and formula feeding have different advantages and disadvantages and it's fine to decide that for you, the balance of advantages and disadvantages sways towards you moving to formula feeding.
I wouldn't personally at this stage be thinking about expressing enough to get a full night off because breastfeeding takes up a lot of time and I wouldn't want to then spend more time expressing.

No one cracks breastfeeding in a week or two - it's a process, your baby is learning too and you need to give both of you at least 6 weeks to establish everything.
After that, it should become easy.

It sounds like cluster feeding- it's the hardest time but she is learning and so are you. Happy birthday for yesterday!

Can you speak to a BF peer support volunteer?

@AlienLady Why did you wake her up at 10:30 and the earlier one? If she had a mammoth feed beforehand she would have been fine as long as she's still having lots of wet and dirty nappys, I'd only wake her if she wasnt. Tomorrow use that time to sleep / rest and get yourself up and showered and feeling human and to feed and water yourself - that part is really important, you need lots of fluid. If she's having good longer feeds now that's great. I really wouldn't bother expressing, it's such a poor indicator of how much milk you are producing and just stresses you out and giving expressed feeds is a bit pointless as baby needs to put their order in. Breast milk is like magic and is specially formulated for the time of feed, more fore milk on a hot day, more hind milk and sleepy hormones in the evening etc.

By all means get her weighed again but keep in mind if she's had any big bowel movements before, the wet and dirty nappies, is in my non-medically opinion, a far better indicator than the number on the scales Asif it's coming out it must have gone in. The only time that wouldn't be true I guess is if she isn't absorbing it but tha would be a much bigger issue.

I am going to a breast clinic tomorrow to check for tongue tie @junerella . Thank you!

So she’s been on my breasts since 10am. I gave her to my husband brush my teeth and she had stopped sucking. But nope, she wanted to back on and is gulping it down. I don’t know how I have time to express.

But if she's feeding from you you don't need to express. It sounds like she was sleepy on day 5/6 as is common it's exhausting being in the world but has now picked right back up and that you and she are now doing a fab job.

Because midwife told me to wake every 3 hours and to express otherwise might be admitted to hospital.

I wouldn't express if she's feeding from you like that. It sounds like over the last 12 hours she's had really decent feeds, plenty of wet nappies etc. It sounds like you're doing a fabulous job! Get her weighed again tomorrow to make sure she's not still losing weight.

This is a very normal feeding pattern at the start - put a boxset on, get some snacks and lots of drinks, and snuggle up. Get some Christmas shopping done on your phone.

@AlienLady I think you and she has turned a corner now, it's been a while since I did my peer BF volunteer course but sounds like you are both doing great now alot can change quite quickly for better or worse at that age hopefully at tomorrows weigh in youll see for yourself.

I really hope so. I really hate expressing. I would like to introduce a bottle though eventually so is it worth expressing once or twice a day?

does this look like a tongue tie?

I can't help on that one, I never got on with expressing, fed DD for three years and hated expressing as it made me feel like a cow. I think if I had another child and wanted to offer a bottle I'd just buy some of those premixed formula cartons, I don't think expressing is worth the stress and baby would still have the majority of milk direct from source so would still benefit.

In fact we did have to do that temporarily as I had to go to A&E for an injury and she was just fine having a bottle of formula when I wasn't around for the day.

I think that if your concern is her taking the bottle but not latching to your breast, I'd leave the bottle for a few weeks unless you have to.

How many days old? Sorry it might have said somewhere.

Breastfeeding in the early weeks is relentless. Constantly on the breasts, suckling and feeding.

Where are you based? Have you seen if there is a Breastfeeding Network drop in near you?

Not all midwives are knowledgable and great when it comes to breastfeeding.

They also say not to introduce a bottle as it can confuse them and then they refuse to breastfeed.. same with dummies too. But I do know some babies take both fine.

OP you're doing all the right things and her feeding so long is brilliant news.

Please don't worry about expressing at all and focus on baby on the boob for now

I would say not but it’s best to get an expert opinion