gah my boobs get full and wake me up every three hours but baby is happy to sleep for 4-5 hours at night!

[Thandeka]

DD gets 2/3rds of her intake as breastmilk (boob and EBM) and the other third as formula. (supply issues due to traumatic birth and really crap start to breastfeeding due to DD being fed through a nasogastric tube for fist 8days and no skin to skin for first 24hours after delivery).

Anyhow DD is a fairly good sleeper (although she can be a noisy one!) and sleeps next to me in a co-sleeping cot).

Her last feed of the night is formula and I pump at the last possible minute to ensure my boobs are as empty as possible but I still wake up 3hours later while DD is fast asleep. At the minute I am pumping her night feeds as she is a very slow feeder and giving all her EBM in a bottle means a feed takes about an hour (inc nappy change, winding and settling back to sleep) instead of three hours (bfeed, plus ebm top up, plus pumping next top up, winding and settling back to sleep!).

So basically she goes down at 10ish- I am up at 1 to pump, she is still fast asleep and sometimes I will wake her so we can go back to sleep together but sometimes especially if she has taken a while to settle to sleep she may have only been down for two hours so I don't want to wake her. But then I am up again in an hour for her feed.

So last night was 1am- pump, 2.30am feed. 4am pump, 5.30am feed. Which means me getting up more in the night than I need to!

Bah! (and considering my boobs don't have full supply I dread to think what a full boob would feel like!)

Any suggestions? I am soooo tired!
(and another reason her night feeds are in a bottle is night is when she is crap at latching properly and I am too tired to sort it and currently trying to heal very sore cracked nips- I can just about feed her lying down but won't again til the nips are healed and since her feeds take an hour plus I am worried about falling asleep on her- she had her tongue tie snipped and while this has defo improved her latch it doesn't seem to have improved her efficiency that much!)

How can I stop my full boobs waking me up!? Grrrrrr!

if it were me i would ditch the pumping and the formula nd just breastfeed her!

pumping is stimulating your milk supply, that's why you are waking up full, because you keep emptying and that is letting your body know that you NEED that milk

if you are waking up due to being so full then I think you have plenty enough milk to feed her with if you wanted to do so

I know you say she is a slow feeder, but if you just breastfed her rather than following that with formula top up and pumping as well then it wouldn't take so long....

Hiya

Agree with thisisyesterday.

If your boobs are filling up, your obviously increasing your supply.

Also if you feed more at night, your body will also increase supply more (hormones - prolactin is released at night).

Your doing really well to increase your supply!

I know the cracked nipples is a tough one (I've been there). But keep at it and they will heal despite a small one mauling your boobs.

In terms of time it takes to feed. Well as they they older the guzzle quicker. I'm afraid you'll just have to bide time on that one but eventually it will be quick.

For now enjoy the fact that you're able to watch a whole episode of CSI or Desperate Housewives because soon there'll be no chance.

XXX

why don't you give one of the bf helplines a call and see what they suggest? or see if you have a local la leche group or anything?

have tried reducing the formula and just breastfeeding- she screams for more food, she can take up to two hours to empty both breasts properly (although the other has started to refill in that time) and then will still scream for more food, she would basically live on the breast and my nips and sanity just can't quite take that.

And because her feeds take so long the milk she got at the start of the feed has pretty much been digested by end of the feed- so it all starts again (and even when she has finished I can usually still pump up to 30ml so I am not convinced she is great at extracting milk from the breast). I know I produce approx 30ml an hour which should theoretically be just about enough for her but it doesn't seem to be. She lost 14% of her bodyweight in first two weeks and took almost 7 weeks to regain her bodyweight (tongue tie snipped at 7weeks) and she is now 9 weeks and still need to keep her top ups for time being to ensure she still gains well and keeps the HCP's of our backs.

The night feed is solely EBM (if the nightfeed was a breastfeed she would still need (demand) a top up (of hopefully EBM if I have it but formula if not, then I would still need to pump her next feed so giving her a bottle of freshly pumped ebm is the fastest way to do it- or it was until she started sleeping for longer!

May be worth having her latch checked again?

Better latch is more milk for her and less ouch for you.

You can phone one of the BF lines or see if your local childrens centre has a BF session or councillor who can help.

If she's able to finish a bottle much faster than the boob, perhaps the latch needs some tweaking.

Not tried it myself but heard a lot of mums who have had latching issues and slow feeders hail it as the best thing in the world, nipple shields? Not very familiar as I didn't use but apparently for babies with poor latch it can be the difference between BFing and giving up all together. Worth a try?

You could phone one of the BFing lines and ask them advice on nipple shields or post on mumsnet for those with experience?

Have friend who BFed her first no issues for 6 months but was completely unable to get no 2 to latch on and stay on. And she had HVs breathing down her neck and it was stressful. So in the end she jacked it in and bottle fed and it was just fine. Its always an option if you feel its just too much.

That said you're clearly determined as you're still going at 9 weeks despite problems so I'd give nipple shields a shot and getting some face to face advice so that someone can see you BFing your DD and advise on hold/position/latch. Go online to your local councils website and find your nearest childrens centre or phone your GPs surgery to see what info they have.

Hope you're able to find a quick solution.

Hope it works for you.
XXX

Thandenka sounds like you are doing really well with the breast feeding.

Several things occur to me

Sounds like you are sucessfully increasing your bm supply, that 's great.

Part of the trouble is that babies at this age change so quickly - hence what was working before stops when she changes, ie starts sleeping longer.

Are you trying to get back to fully bf or are you happy mixed feeding.

Sounds like she finds milk easier to get from the bottle, not uncommon I believe.

You say you don't want to feed all day, all night but tbh this is just what I would try to do. Moving her to taking all bm direct from you rather than expressing would seriously up the amount of sleep you get. My advice if she is your only child is to try to do this just for a few days, it will help adjust your supply to what she actually needs & the more she feeds direct from you the more efficient she will get at it.

TBH these are all my own musings, you sound like you would really benefit from a chat with a bf counsellor.

We go to all the breastfeeding groups- but our fave isn't on this week due to the hols. Just tried to get an appointment at the other one but is fully booked. Will try and phone them a bit later.

In terms of nipple shields initially was all I could use to get her latched on and we used them for first three weeks, then I managed to wean her off them and haven't used them for weeks, when the nipple crack got particularly bad I went back to them but it changed her latch again so I persevered without them. I thought they would reduce my milk supply if I got too dependent on them?

Have had her latch checked loads but think I will get it checked again now her latch seems to have settled post tongue tie snip (she must have been shifting between two latches as she got used to newly freed tongue as she destroyed my nips in last week but has calmed down again now!

I know I do need to keep her plonked on the boob as much as possible but I also want to get out and about with her as feel am going insane at home on my own! I am fairly happy with mixed feeding- in an ideal world I would exclusively breastfeed but considering all the hurdles we have got through to get this far with bfeeding (see here then I am not sure I have the energy for another battle, if the tongue tie snip had meant she turned a corner and was suddenly more efficient then I probably would make the effort but I just can't see her ever getting all she needs at the boob in 20-30mins every few hours and it would be a 24hour a day effort (yes I see your point about it would teach her to be more efficent but am not sure I have the stamina or energy anymore!) having a bad breastfeeding day today!