Baby losing weight, could do with some advice

[TinkerBellesMumandFiFi2]

My baby loves to suck, she can feed for an hour and want to come back pretty quickly, all the signs show she is feeding. She will also take a little finger or her thumb/ finger to suck on. She also has times where she is "comfort sucking" on me. I am getting quite sore because when she is comfort sucking she has a different position and she lets my nipple go in and out or she will fight it.

However, for all the milk she does actually get (2 hours over 3 earlier this evening and it's not that unusual) she has lost 1oz a week in the last two weeks. Two weeks ago she was 5lb, on the Monday she was 4ob 15oz and was the same on the Friday. Today was the first time she has been weighed since and she came in at 4lb 14oz.

I don't know how I can feed her anymore than I do and I'm getting so sore I can hardly stand my clothes some days.

I'm still feeding my 2 1/2 year old but I'm getting to the point where I am close to giving up on the youngest one. I know I won't but I feel like I could happily give her to someone else and walk away

lots of hugs, sorry you are feeling down.

how old is your daughter? babies commonly loose weight in the first 2 weeks.

i think you need to see a qualified breast feeding counsellor to check the latch and ensure there is no problem eg tongue tie esp if you are tandom feeding as i would have thought it would have been less painful for you than for a mother starting feeding.

it is very common for newborns to be almost constantly feeding, but you need to make sure she is effectively extracting milk.

is there a breast feeding group or counsellor near you?

are you using lansinoh or that type of thing? very helpful for soreness.

good luck and i hope someone more experienced comes along soon.

She's 5 weeks, she only lost 1oz at birth then gained well till she was 3 weeks and 5lb.

When she's actually feeding she is doing it well, even when she's on for an hour I don't feel sore from it, it's just when she fights me I get sore. We have the community neonatal team visiting once or twice a week at the moment.

I'm not able to get out to the two groups near me as I'm not very mobile at the moment. I got to one once as my partner was off work and took me, they were happy with her feeding there.

Hi TBM- do you have H & B's phone numbers?
I can cat you with them if you want to chat with them.
B def does home visits, I know you live further, but I'm sure she'd know who could help.

My only suggestion would be to cut back on T's feeds, so S is getting all the heartiest nutrition from the milk, but I don't know anything about tandem feeding, so I'm sure you've already got that one under control, plus thr stimulation from T feeding is stilll important.

aside- DS arrived, 12 days over... 8lb 10
fed 6 hours 2nd night, 8 on 3rd, in agony- went to P Rd yest am, and H thinks he has tongue-tie- hence all my pain. (dd never hurt me, even on marathon days)

I haven't got their numbers, I'm staying with my parents at the moment so I'm not far from them. If you're going on Friday let me know and I'll get a taxi over. My email is my normal ID @blueyonder.co.uk

Tink's not feeding that often at the moment, she asks but I'm still feeding two-handed so can't manage her too. She gets it at night sometimes and if someone else has Fifi and she asks I'll feed her but that's not often.

I had a bad afternoon where I was in so much pain and she was on for over an hour but not latching properly. I called Mum, she came back for her and took her out with some EBM. I put her in the car seat and gave her my little finger till Mum picked her up and found that she is pulling her tongue back which I think is what causes the pain.

You need some real life help, I think. It's not normal for babies to continue to lose weight like this and it's important this is looked at by a midwife or HV (if you have good ones)...just to get an informed pair of eyes on what's happening and how it could improve. My guess is that milk transfer is not all it could be; an experienced, knowledgable person can help with that...good as they may be in other ways I don't think the neonatal team will fall into that catergory.

With a baby as little as this one, you might want to get good help sooner rather than later....would be different if we were talking about a 10 pounder, though even then you'd be wanting no continued weight loss.

I'm assuming you're confident in scales and weighing person?

We're quite fortunate in this area to have the two brilliant ladies EachPeach spoke about, they're a MW and a HV with extra training in breastfeeding, one of them is an NCT counselor. They do a lot of the breastfeeding training in the PCT and you can always tell when you meet someone they have trained, I know from last time (B&H mentioned it) that my NN-MW is one of them so I do trust her. It's been the same person and scales the last few times.

NN-MW is coming back on Monday and I have a paediatrician appointment anyway on Tuesday, if I can get hold of one of the two as well they would be really helpful.

Had some big wind this evening, she'd been fussing at the breast so I took her off and bounced around a little with her. She calmed down a lot afterwards and we got a couple of good feeds from her. I used Lansinoh today for the first time and that has made a big difference to the pain I was in.

TBM- I have emailed you- hope you see it today, rather than waiting until tomorrow.
What is the lansinoh? Is for nipples? Maybe I need to get some.... DS is not improving his sucking techniques so far

It's brilliant, it's not cheap (£10 a tube) I've put off buying it until yesterday (for 2 1/2 years!) and regret not getting it sooner. It's like soft wax so you don't have to use much of it, it comes out slowly too so you don't get too much. I rubbed some on each side then put a blob on a couple of breast pads (a tip from the instructions) and it was a relief straight away. I'm going to be singing it's praises from now on!

I seem to remember B saying last time that they have samples of it and that one sample sachet will last forever.

Thanks for the email, I'll go over there and check now.

She's been a lot better today since she had that big burp last night, slept between feeds, not fought me and fed well. I can't believe that one burp has been brewing for that long, but I'm going to be more careful about her wind from now on just in case!

What are S's nappies like?
I think DS isn't getting enough hindmilk, and have altered the way I feed him to make sure he is draining each side properly.
That would affect her weight gain as she would be filling upon 'water' rather than fats...

She has been having quite green nappies but today they were more mustardy. She can stay on for an hour or more so I'm confused about the colour - HV said it can be a sign of a healthy diet, she had one mum who they tried her eating less healthy for a couple of days and the poohs went back to normal!

Anyway, the good news is she went up to 5lb 1oz today! 3oz in 3 days at this age is amazing, she's only expected to do 1 or 2oz a week She had 50ml on Saturday and 100ml on Sunday as top ups, not sure how much difference they would make though. I have found she feeds better after a burp and she can burp (no kidding) like a man! Tink has taken to calling her George - as in Peppa Pig, because Tink is Peppa! So I'm going to try and wind her more often and see if that makes a difference.

She's six weeks on Friday so we may get a growth spurt but being early it could be anytime in the next five weeks or even both (B used to point out Tink's CGA when she was increasing her feeds and she was having them at both her CGA and actual age!)

Wow! great weight gain
Mine are terrible at burping- so maybe I'm just bad at winding?

I'm bad at winding (Tink's better than me ) but Fifi doesn't need help!

B said only English has a word for wind most people just let the baby shift it themself.

oh no tbm, the Dutch do it too. The word for wind literally means 'little burp' and there is a culture of not putting baby down until it is out.

Not sure what's happened in the last week or so (passing term probably) but she has gained so much weight it's scary! Today's weigh-in she is 5lb 9oz and probably going to be discharged from the community neonatal team next week (6lb target).

Since Saturday she has fed better, she sleeps, has waking time where she is interested in things, she also has waking time where she likes to shout for no reason her feeds seem so much better and she has yellow pooh! She's even started to feel less like a baby monkey as I'm able to put her down more. I'm feeling so much calmer than I did and not crying as much

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and help.

hoorah for weight gain and yellow nappies. well done tbm and fifi

hehe I can't believe how excited I am over the colour of my daughter's pooh!

I know it's not technically important but when it's on going it is worrying.