anyone whose new baby suckled for 5 hrs plus at a time?

[trishpops]

my dd is 4 days old, my milk has not fully come in yet, and she is feeding for literally hours at a time, 3 hrs this morning, and 5 hrs this afternoon/evening,same sort of thing yesterday. she will feed well most of the time but i am struggling to latch her on properly. MW says the duration of her feeds are due to a combo of poor latch and colostrum not filling her properly. she has had a few short feeds where she has dropped off the nipple satisfied but most of the time she drops off then is hungry again within minutes. i am really keen to persevere with feeding but have given her some formula over last 24 hrs just so we can both sleep. i'd love to hear from anyone who has experienced the same thing, and if it got better...i'm feeling ready to cave in to formula and i really don't want to at such an early stage at least.

or at the next bouncy castle birthday party.

you know, i didn't want to be a pest etc etc with asking for help with dd but spending time on here has taught me that helping someone to keep bfing must be a source of such AMAZING pride for those that can do. i'll be shouting out loud for help if there's a next time, it'll be a huge privilege for someone to help me to keep going.

oh, i plan to get all naggy about it if i have to, aitch.

i have no shame this time! after sitting in a stranger's living room all evening with no top on getting DD2's latch sorted, i'm ready to go for it this time.

i can't be arsed with trying to remember to buy formula and sterilising bottles on top of everything else.

Hang in there. Your baby knows what she is doing. She's building up the supply to suit her needs. All perfectly normal and very transitory, don't freak out.

It will settle in a few days when milk comes in. You'll actually be grateful for the suckling when you become engorged!

Also, Has anyone told you about growth spurts?
Every few weeks (or days) she'll go on a mini marathon feeding constantly for 24h/48h to adjust the supply to new needs.

My advice is simply surrender to the flow right now and at least for the next 4 to 6 weeks. If you make BF your priority you'll be more relaxed and give you body time to heal.

I co-sleep and feed my DD (16 days) in the lying down position at night. We both go straight back to sleep and the sleep disruption is quite minimal.
During the day we alternate positions.

take care

Oh boy do I remember the night DS fed for hours on end before my milk came in! I wish someone had said then about this being the actual process by which the milk DOES come in, at the time I thought I couldn't feed him enough and mw ended up giving him formula to settle him to sleep after several hours - and I cried myself to sleep thinking I'd failed. I was the only one bf on my ward, all the other babies seemed so much more settled...

Once your milk does come in, one thing that might help is to swap boobs rather than sticking with the one 'until the milk runs out'. There's various advice about whether or not to do this, but I think that different methods suit different times/situations (some people with oversupply/fast letdown say feeding on one side only for a few feeds is better). I 'switch fed', ie moving DS to other side after around 15 mins, which helped give my v sore nips a break (then back to first side again if necessary). The bf councillor at hospital said that recent research on milk shows that after the first few mins of 'foremilk', the subsequent sucking action actually mixes the milk together so there's no need to 'drain' breast.

Good luck with it, do get help with latch (NCT or La Leche League can help, I think) and persist if you can, life is so much easier. I'm still going at 8.5 months now...

Positionning is a very personal thing IMO. I was constantly told to ditch the cushion, that DD would feed better without it. However she still has "her" pillow at 20m and can feed without it but just likes it when at home

Do what you need to do so LO feeds and you are not breaking your back. Deal with the feeding in public later, you can feed in the bath if needs be, they really seem to like that! I think Kisskidee told me about that one (do a search on her name - she is full of very helpful info).

Epat - Feel free to post any time when LO arrives, I will be more than willing to get the pom poms out

by the way, re the 30 mins each side bit... i know that it's not right, in the sense that comfort is no bad thing etc etc but imo dd used to feed for so very much longer than that because she wasn't latched on properly. or she was, in terms of the hospital bfcs and midwives i saw, but she wasn't actually getting a lot of milk or stimulating my breasts particular.

anyhow, there's no point over-reacting at this stage, your baby is still teeny, but imo if you can see someone from the NCT that would be great. i wish i had done, the more i learn here about how little training in bfing midwives have, the more i am.

sorry, haven't read all posts, has anyone mentioned tongue tie?

Is it sore? ds1 had tongue tie - can you ask your MW (or bfc) to check your lo for this? this could lead to long, painful feeds. although ds2 also feed almost constantly at the beginning and doesn't have tongue tie, but it wasn't as sore.

Yes. For weeks and weeks. People said it was easier with the 2nd but he was just the same.
With hindsight it was a bloody good excuse to lie/sit there and rest after difficult pregancies and one assisted, one c-section births.
Luckily I live in an area with good bf support and lots of volunteers coming along to tell me it was absolutely normal otherwise I'd have listened to MIL saying 'oh so she'll be putting him on bottles then' to dp at every opportunity.
Keep at it, you are doing great.

another thing that mentally helps me think what is normal - human babies have been bf for longer than humans have had clocks, so listen to your baby and not the clock!

No not really cos then we were into the ILs accusing me of starving both my babies by 'only giving them milk' till 6 months.

SIL gave her baby apple sauce from the sunday dinner at 10 weeks. Followed by some of the chocolate sauce from the pudding while they all clapped and got excited at 'her first taste of chocolate' like it was an important development stage!!!

I am the ONLY mother in dps family who has breast fed. They don't think its normal. I can't understand their views at all, but found that rummaging around under my top was always a great way to get them rushing to leave Now THAT made me feel smug... perhaps I should have kept it up and now be tandem feeding my two year old and three year old boys.... but that would be another thread entirely