One week old and not latching on properly, any tips?

[pinkdolly]

Hiya,

My beautiful little man was born on sat 21st almost 3 weeks early and weighing in at 5lbs 5 oz. He has been slightly jaundiced which the doc tells me could be the reason for his poor latching on and lazy feeding habits.

For the first couple of days he hardly took any mlk at all, I had to squeeze drops of colostrum into his mouth to get him to take it. After that things sem to have picked up and he will latch on, but sometimes I can be tryinf for up to 30 mins. He just seems so (not botthered) with the whole feeding affair. This can be very frustratng, especially durng the nght feeds as you can imagine. He wakes too frequently and then wont take the breast.

He was weghed on thursday and only lost 2oz,and he is having plenty of wet and dirty nappies, so am not too worried on that front. I'm just sooo tired, I have 3 dd's (6,5,2) to look after. And only fnshed feeding dd3 in nov (now she was the perfect breastfeeder, latched on immediatly and never had one single problem).

So are there any ways to stimulate a lazy baby into feeding better. Have already tried, changing his nappy to get him to wake and get teasy (he hates nappy changes) and putting him back in his crib to cry for a tnsy bit (I dont like to do that, he is so titchy).

Oh and I know my milk supply is fine, got milk everywhere, infact sometimes it appears he is strugglng to swallow fast enough for the milk flow).

Sorry so long, any tips would be great.

Thanx

Thanx

Depends really, if he has had a good feed and latched on well then roughly 3hrs. If he is being lazy and not latching on or falling back to sleep then about 1hr 30 mins.

no I haven't checked for those things actually (tbh have no experience with that so wouldn't really know what i'm looking for).
And I thought the answer would be patience and perserverance (I have no inclination to bottle feed as I know I am quite capable and not at all ready to throw in the towel at the first hurdle).
Some extra sleep would be greatly appreciated tho

Thanx for that - he is asleep in his sling at the moment so will check when he wakes up.

There is a breast feeding support group at the local childrens centre will phone them and find out when it is on I think.

Also the HV is popping over on thursday to see us, so am presuming she will be able to give us a hand with that.

Congratulations!

Had similar, my DS was 3weeks early, developed jaundice in hospital so ended up topping up with formula which I hated and ended up making it even more difficult to establish BF. Anyway, that aside (as it sounds like he's doing very well with the nappies) - I found that I had to work very hard to help him latch on as he couldn't curl his top lip out and he needed very precise positioning.

I did a lot of pre-expressing to soften the nipple and also dribble milk onto his lips and into his mouth.

I would have to flatten my nipple between my forefinger and middle finger in order to get enough of it into his mouth (letting go once he'd latched on).

I also ended up having to use a cushion to ensure his spine was completely straight whilst feeding otherwise he would fuss and fuss.

Also did lots of skin to skin as it's supposed to stimulate the sucking reflex/urge in babies as well as milk production (which you don't seem to have a problem with). Try co-bathing and spending the day in bed with him.

But to be honest it took me about 2 weeks of exclusive breast-feeding before DS got the hang of it. He was very sleepy for the first 3 weeks of his life. Once he slept for 8 hours straight, despite numerous nappy and outfit changes, blowing on him, tickling him, dribbling milk into his mouth. Nothing would keep him awake (he would open his eyes momentarily so I knew he wasn't ill). Called the MW and she said that if I'd tried all the tricks, to just leave him to he eventually got hungry. Has never slept 8 hours straight since! And is now 7 months old.

Good luck!