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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

confused

2 replies

hildathebuilder · 27/06/2010 13:01

I have a 16 week ds (who was 11 weeks early so is only 5 weeks corrected) has been breastfed along with some bottles of expressed milk since he came home from scbu. Amazingly he has had no fortification or supplements in any of that time despite starting life so tiny he's been trying to catch up and the dieticians see his feeding as a success story.

He usually has 1 or 2 bottles of ebm in any 24 hours, and given he couldn't feed apart from through a tube for weeks I have always been perfectly happy expressing milk. In fact I think it's often easier especially when he's in a state for whatever reason. However DS has taken to faffing about when he's offered the breast. It's like there is always something more interesting for him to look at or do. In the daytime I can kind of understand this, he's easily distracted, but at night he's taken to being the same, wakes, feeds for a couple of miutes then gets bored or something. Which makes night feeds ether really long, or really frequent. He won't feed lying down so co sleeping doesn't work as he won't latch in that position. I'm becoming increasingly tempted to give him expressed milk overnight as the previous ease of just picking him up out of his moses basket and feeding him has gone... but ideally I would like him to still breastfeed some of the time (especially if we are out etc) Before I do so I'm interested in any suggestions or tips to persuade him that he can concentrate on feeding from me. If then it doesn't work and he just wants ebm that's fine (its the same milk after all).

OP posts:
tiktok · 27/06/2010 17:55

hilda - there are so many possibilities that occur to me, I think the best suggestion is to call one of the bf helplines and speak to someone in real life.

It's a real achievement to have kept up with bf despite all the difficulties you have had. It's deffo worth exploring what might be happening, to allow you and your ds to keep up the convenience and closeness of direct bf.

ZuzuandZara · 27/06/2010 19:55

Hi Hilda, well done for persevering with the breastfeeding, I know how challenging it is!
I have twins who were 6 weeks prem, 3 and 4 lbs.

Similar to you, were tube fed for a few weeks before we got them home.

Persevered with breastfeeding, and we had problems off and on with both of them. Bad latch, faffing around, looking upwards at ceiling (!), crying, etc etc. Would always offer breast and if we were all getting in a state would give a bottle of ebm. Most problems lasted a few days then things smoothed out for a while before the next problem came along! Realised it was not worth us getting worked up and would just give bottle, but always offered breast first.

Eventually things eased and breast feeding both has been pretty much problem free for some weeks now. They are 22 weeks.

So I guess what I'm saying is hopefully it's just a phase and he will get over it!

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