BF Baby admitted to hospital with dehydration and high sodium levels - he's ok now but

[WinkyWinkola]

the doctor at the hospital said he should on be fed every 3 hours and not on demand.

This is because he falls asleep at the breast after 5 mins feeding instead of getting a full tummy from a proper feed.

It's not my baby btw. It's my friend's. He's a week old.

Is this good advice from the doctor? I did suggest a bf counsellor to them but I don't think they'll do it. They've had no bother feeding their first child and new baby is latching on etc. Just sleeping instead of feeding hence his hospital visit.

Any advice would be grateful. Thank you.

Poor baby, poor mum.

Hypernatraemic dehydration happens when a baby has not been bf often enough or effectively enough.

The falling asleep after 5 mins can be normal, but not if he then doesn't wake for hours. A new baby taking short feeds like this would normally wake up shortly afterwards and feed again.

If this baby has not been doing this, then he has been sleeping too long to get more breastmilk into him - maybe the doc is saying '3 hourly' to make sure he feeds more often. 'On demand' might not be enough.

(However, 3 hrly would be the minimum)

I would say yes, she needs some further opinions - a breastfeeding counsellor would support her and could give her some questions to ask the doc. The bfc will not tell her not to do what the doctor has told her.

Thank you for advice. Have given the LLL contact details and their local NCT bfc number. But baby seems to be doing ok now.

You are a great friend for caring.

When this happened to my DS I was all alone because the hospital sent DH home. My DS had to have a brain scan after 3 days to check that no damage had been done during the dehydration, this was horrible and prayed on my mind for weeks. I would have loved a friend like you to sit and listen and care, and do the sensible thinking for me.

yes, when DS was admitted at 2 weeks for similar reasons, I was given similar advice, to feed every 3 hours round the clock, to make sure he got a certain minimum amount of fluid. As I recall, I mixed bfs with formula feeding and ebm.