4wk old only seems to feed for 5mins max. is she getting enough?

[hangoninthere]

All the lierature indicates that she should be feeding for 15mins at each breast. She'll do about 10 mins after shes slept for 5 hours at night but in the day its just a few minutes quite frequently. Should i make her wait longer? she never refuses the breast, instead she just throws up if she overfeeds it seems.

im getting her weight checked on tuesday but until then im concerned she may not be havimg enough .

All babies feed at different speeds, my DS has always been a quick feeder. 5 mins has always been about his average, I really wouldn't worry.

What is her poo like? If it is green then she may only be getting the foremilk, in which case you should get your latch checked, but if it's yellow and there is plenty of it along with lots of wet nappies then there is no reason to worry.

In your position I would get her weighed, but if she seems well and alert then don't spend the two days stressing out.

hangoninthere - good bf literature doesn't say anything about how long a baby 'should' be feeding for. In fact, I would say any literature that does say anything prescriptive like this is certainly not 'good'

Yes by all means, she can be weighed.

But it's not the length of feeds that drives the supply, but frequency of feeding and effectiveness of feeding.

Green poos, by the way, matter not a jot in a healthy, thriving baby. A baby can be gaining weight well, and have green poos. We don't need to worry about foremilk and hindmilk if the baby is fine, and foremilk is good stuff anyway

Hope you gain confidence and that her weight helps with this

Ok I've just had her weight checked - she's gained just 3oz in the past 7 days. The HV wasn't concerned but it doesn't seem very much. Am I being paranoid??

If you are worried, hangoninthere, feed her more often

That's the easiest way to get more milk into a baby.

She may not need it - one weight means nothing, and as you say, the HV is not concerned, so clearly the evidence is she is fine