Does this sound like a latch problem?

[catski]

My daughter is nearly three weeks old and has a different 'style' of breastfeeding to my son, and I'm not sure if it's evidence of a problem or not. She takes a long time to latch on - a good five minutes of on-off-on-off and much fannying on before she really gets going. Although five mintues doesn't sound like much, at 3am in the morning it's an eternity and very frustrating. When she is on, sometimes she loses the latch briefly, but only for a tiny moment and she's straight back on, but it's like a smacking sound against my breast and I wonder if it's causing her to take air in. Then, if she feeds well, it's for about an hour, and in the last few days I've been lucky if she goes for more than 2 to hours between feeds, which makes me wonder if she's feeding efficiently or not. Sometimes she only feeds for a minute or too and drops off to sleep but is awake again 15 minutes later.

I'm getting a bit wild eyed and desperate so any advice would be great. Is it too early to give a dummy? You're going to say yes aren't you, and you're going to tell me it's all completely normal and it will pass and all of that stuff and I am going to cry heartily.

at 3 weeks it is usual for them to not go more than 2 hours between feeds

can you try to vary the hold to see if that helps

i found the rugby ball hold very useful in the early days when my boobs were bigger than DD's head

is the on and off because of a too fast let down???

Its a long shot - but are you sure she doesn't have a tongue tie? Just that the on/off/on/off sounds like the latching probs I had with DD2 who had a moderate tongue tie. Its often missed by hospitals these days.

Also, worth going along to BF clinic or similar to check the latching if you're worried. even if its fine, they might be able to help improve it, or put your mind at rest. Difficult to tell over the internet!

(PS congratulations!)

Thanks for your replies (and congraulations!).

She was weighed again today and the nurse checked her tongue and said she definitely doesn't have tongue tie.

When do they generally speed up their feeding? I remember my son woke just as frequently but he did manage to finish his feeding in about 20 minutes rather than an hour by this point. She's putting on weight (about 10oz each week) and there's no real pain in my nipples, so maybe I just have a very greedy baby!

I'd still like to get the latch checked just in case (hence my other thread for bf consultant).

Thanks again.