Breastfeeding 2-3 minutes and sleepy

[JA1003]

Im a FTM and pretty worried / confused. My baby is 8 weeks old and sleeps through the night without wanting a feed. I sometimes offer night feeds ans she suckles a bit but doesn't seem too bothered. She usually cluster feeds from about 7-10pm so will have her last proper feed around then. Shes then usually not even that interested in a feed when she wakes up at around 7:30am. Her next feed is probably around 8/8:30ish and then she sleeps again often for 3 hours! On top of this her feeds are SO short, like 3 -5 minutes average? Shes gaining weight (a little under 150g a week but shes still gaining) poo’s and pees seem fine too. I sometimes supplement with expressed milk make sure she gets enough when i feel like the feed was even shorter than her usual but again mostly not too bothered. Shes very happy and alert when she is awake and can definitely scream when shes hungry. LC’s have said it’s fine if shes gaining weight. I dont know if i should keep weighing her to make sure or to trust the process or wake her up to feed?

Whilst it does sound fine, I think mother’s instinct is priority here. If your gut is concerned, trust it.

You could request blood check to see if that’s why like blood sugar?

My first baby would feed for ages and as he was tiny, I was told to wake him every 2 hours.

Second baby was exactly the same as yours and the midwives in hospital looked at me as if I was mad when I asked if I needed to wake her up to feed!

All babies are different. I would imagine that if she’s gaining weight, alert and happy when awake and producing wet nappies then it’s fine.

It was a real shock to the system with my second that I could feed her in a few minutes and she’d be fine for hours!

Keep an eye on her. You’ll soon notice if anything changes and she’s not gaining weight, alert, wet nappies etc.

Not a medical opinion though, just a mum to two very different babies!

Just re-read what you’ve written again and I’d not really taken in the bit about her being really sleepy… Have you spoken to your health visitor? When will you take her to be weighed next? That would be a good chance to share your concerns? (Things may well have changed, I could take my babies to the health visitor every week, either to just be weighed or to be weighed and have a chat with the health visitor… they might not do that now?).

That’s good to know about your second baby! Thank you. We’ve had some private midwife appointments who seem to think it’s fine…but I’m not sure they quite understand how much she sleeps!

Thank you! We had her bloods tested about a month ago and it was fine but her sleepiness has increased since then and feeding has decreased so maybe worth doing it again!

I was in your situation and I woke him up every 3h.

My second only ever fed for 5 minutes tops. I used to offer every 2 to 2.5 hours in the day.

If she’s gaining it’s fine but if you think she’s too sleepy after a couple of minutes you could try a few breast compressions?

Also, do you go to any BFing Support Groups? They are usually great for realising what’s normal and what might need a bit of support. You should be able to find your local ones here.

Have a read of these two articles as they may offer a bit of reassurance:

How might I increase my baby’s weight gain

and Sleepy Babies.

Don’t forget that you can always call one of the Breastfeeding Support Helplines too

My daughter was about 7 months before she routinely fed for more than 5 minutes. Around 8-12 weeks she dropped to 5-10 seconds length feeds due to reflux and food allergies we sometimes had to strip her down and do skin to skin to get her to feed. I'd probably be tempted to still wake her once a night if you suspect she's too sleepy at the moment to feed properly.
Has tongue tie been properly assessed by a specialist? It can make feeding be exhausting and cause them to be sleepier

@BunnyRuddington Breastfeeding support group is a really good shout. No idea why I didn’t think of that. I met one of my very good friends there and we’re still friends now 19 years later!

This is a great idea. Thank you!

Thank you, the stripping down is a good idea. She has been assessed for tounge tie and apparently does have a thick posterior tounge tie but the specialist said she wouldn't recommend getting it cut as she didn’t think it would significantly improve feeding ☹️. I have also thought that she might be overcompensating when she’s feeding and therefore get really tired.

I think I would get a second opinion on whether it needs to be cut as you are having issues with feeding/sleepiness.

I would also recommend getting a second opinion in the TT. There is a list of Tongue Tie Practitioners here

Agree with pp on getting the tongue tie reassessed. I've mentioned this a lot on MN, but we saw 6 or 7 different NHS midwives, HVs, specialist HVs, LCs as DD2 was drifting down the centiles and feeding so slowly and none of them spotted a 90% tongue tie that the tongue tie practitioner found. She was very shocked that we'd been struggling on for so long. DD2 was also having only 1 dirty nappy a day, which i now know is not enough - it needs to be 2 or more for breastfed babies. But I was also told by various professionals that only 1 a day was fine.

Is your baby on a low centile? DD1 was a 0.4th centile baby and she was also very tiny and sleepy. We ended up topping up with formula but to be honest, she still didn't really start to gain back to her birth centile until we started weaning. It was all very frustrating. I was told to aim for a 30-40g per day weight gain which just felt impossible at some points!

Worth having a look at Lucy Weber infant feeding on insta as well. She's got some really good tips too.