Baby falling asleep when put on the boob, forced into FF by profs. PLS Help.

[somewhathorrified]

I'm hoping I can condense this down so you don't get bored...

Basically had bad start at BF and didn't get some confidence til day 4, day 5 MW came and weighed him, he'd lost 12% body weight and she sent us to SCBU. At SCBU they tried to keep him over night (although all the tests came back within norms of BF baby), would only let us home if we FF top ups. Baby weighed 2 days later had put on 100grms, so that's good. But now at 10days old he's on 60ml of formula and 15 mins(ish) per boob per feed. I have no idea if my milks 'come in' as I've not got the full, rock hard feeling (although they have grown about a cup size in the last few days and are mildly firmer than b4 and produce white, slightly greasy milk looking stuff).

I've tried to fill him on the breast to reduce FF but he just falls asleep the minute he gets on my boob. MW said to hassle him to wake when he falls asleep which I did, but am finding that he still won't feed as he gets too stressed then won't nap between feeds making him more tired and harder to wake during the next feed. Luckily there's no nipple confusion but I think he prefers bottle to boob because it takes less effort. Don't know what to do, I love BF him and I feel like such a failure. Would love to just stop the bottle FF feeds but the health profs have got me feling like they are breathing down my neck and that I can't chance his weight dipping again.

If anyone has got any suggestions about keeping baby awake, but not stressed when feeding; any suggestions on reducing ff in diet etc I'd really appreciate it.

Have you tried stripping his clothes off, so it keeps him awake? I've been given this tip with my daughter. She only lost 10% and we never had to go to SCBU, though.

You can also try massaging your bereast while feeding, so that more comes out.

I would gradually reduce the amount of formula at each feed and put him to the breast at least every hour with as much skin to skin as you can manage. You need to create a demand for your breasts to respond to iyswim.

Is he peeing and pooing ok?

I know how hard this is from prev. experience with dd.

Hope that someone with more detailed help can come on soon. x

Am stripping him down to his vest, he gets really distressed when he's naked (with nappy). He's peeing and pooing like a trooper, poos all right colour and consistancy etc. I tried an afternoon of him on the boob with him napping between suckling and it just made him hungry, tired and grouchy, almost like the feeding was using more calories than he was getting out of the milk.

What was his birth weight? Are you waking him to feed him? How often are you feeding him?

If you are waking him, Sometimes there is a 'danger' that we do not let a baby find his/her own feeding pattern. Since he has put on weight and is peeing and pooing, I would leave him to wake on his own and see if he feeds better.

You should be able to decrease the formula top-ups fairly easily - just give him less each day at each feed but be prepared to feed him very frequently if he wants it.

SKin to skin say in bed with you .
or expose his feet and massage / tickle them - I even reverted to damp cotton wool to stimulate my dd. I expressed and gave bm in a bottle after doing 10 mins bf each side .
Latch on as much as you can.
You need Tiktok.......

I tickled toes and gently blew on them to keep awake, both DSs, sometimes opened a window to get a cool draft.

Birth weight was 7lb 4oz, we have been waking him to feed him which was making him not want to feed, so now we try to leave him til he's ready to feed. We feed somewhere between every 2 1/2 hrly and 4hrly during the day (feed on demand led but not letting it go passed the 4hrs)and 5hrly at night. The night time feed is his choice, if he woke before that we'd feed him, but he just zonks out.

We've tried:
tickling feet
blowing in face
stripping off
burping
nappy changing
pressure on the jaw

but all only work once (sometimes not at all) during any feed.

He only takes as much FF as he wants...this started at about 45ml, but has increased to 60 ml. Worried that if we reduce the amount available he might go hungry as I don't know if there's something lacking from my boobs. If you are producing milk does it always contain hind milk, or is that the thing that 'comes in'?

rosa what's Tiktok?

It's worth remembering that a baby this age has a sleep cycle that lasts about an hour. Their sleep will get lighter and then deeper during that time. It can be easier to waken a babywhen you notice the sleep entering into a lighter period.
Try as much skin contact as possible, switch nursing during feeds- keep switching breasts when he falls asleep.

It may help to contact one of the breastfeeding charities, NCT or my favourite La Leche League who have a team of breastfeeding counsellors at a free helpline.

They are available 7 days a week, and are extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

This really is one for the health professionals to handle. Especially as your baby has been in SCBU. Also the excessive sleepiness might be an indication that some top up is needed, as some babies use sleep as a way to conserve energy if they are not getting enough calories.

How would you feel about speaking to your midwife and explain your concerns ? i.e. That you want to reduce the formula and go back to exclusive breastfeeding and ask what is her suggestions to enable this to happen ?

Tiktok is a poster on here who is a qualified BFC.

It's worth noting that babies can feed in their sleep and you can encourage this by having skin to skin contact in bed, all night or all day (or both) or just for a few hours, to enable him to find a feeding pattern.

Yes agree that it would be worth phoning a breastfeeding helpline.

National Breastfeeding Helpline
0300 100 0212
National Childbirth Trust
0300 330 0771
Breastfeeding Network
0300 100 0210
La Leche League
0845 1202918
Association of Breastfeeding Mothers 08444 122949

Tiktok is a poster on this board and she is an experienced NCT breastfeeding counsellor.

Basically if Tiktok says the opposite of all of us, go with what she says

One other thing you can try to keep your ds awake: dampen a cotton wool ball and stroke it on the soles of his feet. If he still won't wake up, then squeeze it to drop water onto his ear.

Ds was an extremely sleepy baby who was also slow to gain weight. He hated that!

Having said that, all he learned to do was pretend to be feeding, all the way down to the wiggling ear, and it was only later that we worked out that he wasn't actually swallowing anythng!

Still, I managed to feed him for 13 months - and I was also fortunate enough to be able to express plenty in order to give him losts of EBM so that I could give myelsef the confidence that he was getting plenty.

Thanks for your suggestions and advice guys...someone's just stirring now, right on 4hrly. Back in a bit.

One thing i would say is that if weight is an issue you need to be feeding more than 4 hourly. Babies who are not getting enough calories are very sleepy, and often too tired to feed. It becomes a vicious circle.
It may help to have a babymoon with your baby.
Keep him close to you day and night for a day or two, and encourage him to feed whenever he can. Do nothing else ( if you can ) but feed and hold your baby.
Personally I would ditch the formula and concentrate on breastfeeding at least every hour, at least for a day or two.
It is early days, your prolactin and oxytocin levels are easy to push up so soon after birth so your body will be extremely responsive to an increase in suckling and ramp up your own supply to meet the new needs.
Are you happy with your latch? When your baby is feeding is he swallowing?
Any signs of sore nipples may indicate that the latch needs a little fine tuning, a baby who is not latching well may not be getting much milk at the breast. It could be a cause of the disinterest.
Has your baby been checked for a toungue tie?

Keep us posted.

Yes - I was instructed to wake him to feed him, as he would, if left to his onw devices, have slept through from 2 weeks!

DS was a terror for falling asleep as soon as he latched on, I was sometimes in tears during night feeds as I knew he would wake and start to cry again as soon as I gave up and put him back in bed, but could NOT get a full feed into him before he fell asleep...

Some things that helped a bit were: rubbing his palms; something I read (but can't remember exact details of now) about stroking his hair in a particular direction?; changing his nappy halfway through; or singing him energetic songs - while bouncing him a bit if necessary - the Grand Old Duke of York worked well, though god knows what the neighbours thought if they heard me doing that at 3am!

The one that eventually worked best - provided it doesn't make your DS too stressed - was just taking him off and laying him gently on the floor. For some reason this made him wake immediately, he would usually protest loudly but then WOULD generally stay awake for long enough to get a bit more into him!

I also agree 4-5 hours sounds like too long for a BF baby at 10 days, so yes perhaps see whether you can persuade him to feed a bit more often to keep his energy up.

Good luck and remember, this phase WILL pass and they all grow out of the sleepy thing in a relatively short time!

I went through the exact same thing, ended up in SCBU due to weight loss, sleepy baby when feeding etc. One thing I was told was not to leave DD for more than three hours without feeding. Also have you tried expressing between feeds? Then you can use that to top up instead of formula.

my first one slept like that (it was very hot)

i found cuddling her naked (both of us) to the nipple whilst blowing cool air at her to keep her awake help - and putting her straight on as she woke up...(though perhaps you can't wait that long..) - lots of similar stuff on this thread.

though i think you need someone to come out and see you to give you moral support as well as advice - as others have said.
Have you tried your hospital feeding specialist?

i had similar with dd being very sleepy due to jaundice. i was told to feed her every 2 hours in rder for her to put on weight and clear the jaundice.I had to wake her most of the time until she gradually started to be awake for longer.
good luck, hope you get some useful professional help.

My dd was in SCBU for heart issues and low weight gain for the first 2 weeks of her life. She was tubefed EBM/FF every 4 hours. Basically, I never managed to establish bf-ing whilst she was being tubefed. She was full and just did not want to know. Fell asleep like you described.

Finally a brave midwife was able to convince a doctor to just remove the nasogastric tube, I would room in with my dd and establish exclusive bf-ing. The change was unbelievable. My dd latched on like a dream, took a full feed and fell asleep. She did this every 1-2 hours thereafter.

Clearly, you need to follow medical advice. In my dd's case, I roomed in next to SCBU so they could chart her progress. Just to say, in my dd's case, going commando was what it took.

SWitch feeding is definitely a good idea for a sleepy baby. That means changing breast every time he falls asleep. Aslo try breast compression (massaging milk into him) while he is on the breast as that also stimulated sucking. If he doesn't feed then put him down and try again later. In the mean time express milk so that a) you are stimulaing milk production and b) you have EBM to top him up with.

There should be an infacnt feeding advisor at the hospital you can contact.

Is midwife still visiting? She can contact infact feeding advisor for you.

This situation can be turned around with support.

I just wanted to tell you that I was in a very similar situation to you and went on to feed DD successfully.

Breastfeeding Network helped, as did Jack Newman's website, particularly watching the videos, as did TIKTOK! Lots.

I gradually switched to expressed milk top ups and then dropped the top ups altogether but you need more thorough advice than this.

Just wanted to say it CAN BE DONE. Hang on in there.

I've spoken to so many different MW's about feeding and they all say different things, often completely opposing...that's what's got me so confused and stressed out about the whole thing. One says baby led feeding up to 4hrs apart, the next says every 3 hrs and to wake him up, paed dr.s have said up to 6 hrs at night was fine (backed up by yet another MW). I'm truly begining to think that none of them have a clue! The only thing they've all said is not to express (no reason why).

Everyone has said that the latch is good, although no-one has mentioned tongue tie, I would assume someone at SCBU would have checked...wouldn't they? I can't tell if he's swallowing most of the time as I've got a problem with my hearing on one side atm.

I've been trying a baby led day today and allowing him to get his sleep and so far he seems to be staying awake so much better than usual, he hardly took 30ml FF and was on the boob for a good 45min in all, using the switching method after each time he fell asleep.

The problem with a 3 hrly feed cycle is that we were finding that feeding is taking 1 1/2-2hrs then post feeding bum change and settling would mean he'd only be getting 20-30 mins kip, then he was understandably grumpy and couldn't be awake for the next feed. The 4hrly cycle means he gets a solid hr's sleep between feeds and a little awake/interaction time.

I am a midwife and can empathise with you completely. The problem is that you end up getting lots of advice as to what might work which can be confusing.

Definitely think that best thing to do is get support from 1 breastfeeding 'professional' whether that be an infant feeding advisor or your local breasftfeeding netwrok or NCT.

FRom what you have said here, my take =on it is that your baby took a wee while to get breastfeeding established which resulted in 12% bodyweight. That is itself is not unusual.

It is such a shame that formula was introduced at his time as it compounds the the thought that you are not producing enough milk.

Cannot understangd the reasoning behind no expressing. If baby is getting filled up on formula you need to express to ensure breasts get enough stimulation.

I would definitely try breastfeeding alone and see what happens. It is a confidence thing. Try being led by your baby but definitely with RL support.