Help! Wits end being reached - breast, bottle problems with 9-day-old

[herbaceous]

Hello all

Please could you give me some advice? I'm trying to mixed-feed my nine-day-old baby, but find that when he has both breast and bottle he fusses, then won't sleep until he's been sick, then wakes again after only about an hour. If he's fed just bottle, he sleeps for 3-4 hours at a stretch, and is not sick. Naturally, the convenience of the latter option is tempting, but I do want to do what's best for him, so have been to various breast-feeding workshops to improve my latch, etc, so he gets more breastmilk when he is on the boob.

Wednesday's advice was to give him one boob, then 100ml of formula. This made him sick every time. Today I was told to give him two boobs, then 60ml of formula. After this he was still hungry, and didn't go to sleep until he'd been sick. Awake an hour later.

Would it help if I gave him bottle first, then boob?

I'm in the throes of major hormones, and sleep deprivation, which isn't helping, and am losing the determination to keep going with BF. The reason it went wrong in the first place is that after an emergency CS, with no skin-to-skin contact, he wouldn't latch on to the right boob, the left one got so sore it bled, then he lost too much weight and the docs put him on purely formula until we were allowed to leave hospital.

My ultimate goal would be to BF in the day, with formula at night for longer time between feeds. Is this a foolish pipe dream?

[tiktok]

herbacious - it can be misleading to use expressing as a way of judging production. You can easily express less than the baby would get, and in some cases, you can express more. So it tells you nothing reliable.

6 hours in total breastfeeding is probably not enough to build up and maintain a breastmilk supply, sorry It's enough for some, but not for all.

Most young babies - and your baby is 10 days old I think - will spend more time than this, typically on and off many times over 24 hours. It's even more likely that you will need more time than this, because you had a difficult start with lots of formula bottles.

Honestly, I think one issue is that you have very different expectations of what early days are like - maybe comparing youself with other people, or books?? Going with the flow and accepting that these early days will mean a lot of intensive interaction with a baby who needs a lot of feeding, and that it gets easier as time goes on, will help, I think

[idontbelieveit]

A typical day for me when dd2 was new and for the first month or so

6am BF til 7amish
9am-10ish
12-2ish
4pm-10pm or midnight on and off, pretty much on the breast all the time until i couldn't take anymore and had a 15min break while dh held the baby (this break really helped me compose myself)
3am-4am

In total that's about 11/12 hours on the breast.

Now she's 5 almost 6 months it's more like

6am-6:30am
7:30-8am

11am-11:30am

2pm-4pm

5:30-6:30pm
7:30-8:30 then she usually sleeps until 4am sometimes till 6am if i'm lucky, so about 6 hours on the breast.

All babies are different of course but I thought it might be useful for you to have a snapshot as it were.

[Jennylee]

babies can feed almost constantly to build up your supply, you have to give in to sitting on the sofa and feeding a lot, once you supply is better, it will get easier.

[idontbelieveit]

How's it going herbaceous? Hope things are improving for you.

[IsItMeOr]

Hi Herbaceous, sounds like you are having a really tough time of it, and I can remember that feeling that six weeks felt like a life sentence. I've just posted my survival tips on this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/793587-Is-it-colic-or-overtiredness-or-somethi ng-else-Desperate-first

Hope some of them will help you get some rest.

I think you are making it hard for yourself trying to do both ways of feeding at once - although I suspect you won't believe me at the moment as we will try anything to help our babies stop crying - the thing with BFing is that it involves a lot of trust. You have to trust that nature will work and enable you to provide your baby with what they need. The baby has to learn to trust that your breasts will provide them with what they need.

One of the most helpful things I read is that sucking at the breast is incredibly comforting for a baby, and they usually won't suck so hard that they overfeed. There is nothing wrong with comforting your baby that way, just make sure you have got your feet up, the phone, a drink and a snack handy, and something entertaining to watch on TV or read. It's about getting used to a different pace of life iyswim.

Good luck!

[dan39]

Sorry to hear you are struggling but it is bloody hard work and all you seem to do is feed - remind yourself that it will get better cos it WILL, you have some experience with bottles so you can see how faffy they are compared to the boob - I found one of the hardest things is trust - to successfully BF you need to trust the baby to take what he needs, this is so diff from ffing. If he has wet and pooey nappies and gains weight you are fine. If you can hang in there you will get to a styage where it's a pleasure - it was one of the biggest shocks for me too when dd arrived!Also after all we have been thru you kind of want it all to be lovely when they are finally, finally here, and some of it is but lots of it is damned hard work!