BF experts - need a bit of help with supporting friend

[goingnowherefast]

I am a newly qualified mother supporter with the ABM, and have a friend who is bfing her 7 week old dd. She doesn't have much support from her family, most people she knows ff. Anyway, she contacted me asking if feeding 2 hourly was normal. Her DD is having plenty of wet and dirty nappies, everything sounds good, so obv we know it IS normal for many babies. However she has just said "this won't go on for the next 6 months will it?"

This could happen though, couldn't it - how would you word a response here? I can tell her how it will get easier, baby will probably become more efficient etc, and feeds may space out more, but I know with my dd they didn't space out until 7 months! How can I word this without scaring her?!

I have offered to call several times but she prefers to do this by email, which is hard but I think her DH thinks she should just give up. She lives a long way away so I can't give her practical help.

thanks

Very normal imo

A couple of things that she can do that helped me

1. If the baby is falling asleep during a feed I used to wake her up if not feeding for long to put back on and finish her feed.

2. Write down when baby has a feed, and for how long this will help her to see a pattern and help her to see that the feeds are getting longer between and the lentgh of time feeding each time gradually goes down.

It's not likely that she'll be feeding every 2 hours for the next six months, though, is it? Could you not say something like "I'm not in a position to give guarantees, because every baby and mother is different, but it would be unusual to be feeding every two hours for the next six months and I personally would be surprised if you were."

If you're newly qualified, do you have a mentor or similar who can help you with the recommended response to the question -- it can't be a particularly uncommon one?

Am no expert but I had a baby that fed very, very frequently until introducing solids at 6 months.

I found that although my baby probably wanted feeding every 2 hours during the day (less at night, thank God), by the age of 6 months, the feeds were very short in duration.

If you're feeding every 2 hours and the feed last 45 minutes - 1 hour, then it's very full on but if you're feeding every 2 hours and the feed lasts 5, possibly 10 mins, it's not so bad and really not much hassle at all.

I don't think I have ever come across anyone either in RL or from what I remember on MN who didnt find that bf becomes so much easier once the initial newborn stage has passed.