Help! Surely a 4 hour feed is not normal?

[ZabM]

The last 3 nights I have fed my 11 day old for over 4 hours at bed time before she will fall asleep enough to lift into her basket and not wake up and cry.

I physically can't stay awake for this long at night even having slept in the day and really sore breasts and uncomfortable from staying sitting down for this long. I've resorted to feeing lying down in bed and asking my husband to watch us so I don't roll over and squash her when I fall asleep.

My midwife just says feed on demand and go with the flow and even 4-5 hours of feeding is normal. Surely not. She hardly feeds at all during the day.

My midwife is happy because she's putting on weight but I'm just a snivvelling wreck.

Anyone?

Congratulations on the birth of your baby. It's very hard work these first few days and weeks, I sympathese.

'She hardly feeds at all during the day.'
There's your answer. She has to feed sometime, and unfortunately has stored up her appetite for a certain period of time in the evening. Many babies do this, it's called cluster feeding, and as long as she's healthy and putting on weight, it's perfectly normal.

Do you have any idea of why she hardly feeds during the day? Is she easily distracted? What about feeding her in a darkened roomm during the day to try and get her to feed more then?

Have you spoken to a bfing advisor reagrding the soreness you are experiencing? Soreness can be down to a less then perfect latch.

Thanks. I could try the darkened room idea but at the moment when I feed her in the day she just falls asleep after about 10 minutes and falls off. at night she sleeps but carries on feeding. Or she just won't even try to latch on in the day. I''ve no idea why she doesn't feed during the day.

As for the soreness, it's not usually too bad during the day or at the start of the night marathon, just gets worse as the night goes on, I'm sure its just because of the length of feed, and that both me and her get more tired as it goes on so the latch gets harder, rather than we can't get it right at all.