Breast fed baby constantly feeding - looking for perspective from experienced mums

[TiredStepMum]

First time mum here and looking for perspective when I can’t really get any answers as to what is normal from any healthcare professionals.
My little girl is nearly 5 weeks old and exclusively breast fed. She was born at 7lb 8oz on 67th centile but lost 14.5% birth weight by day 5 as my milk was very slow to come in. Thanks to an understanding and laid back community midwife we avoided hospital admission as she wasn’t jaundiced, feeding had been established, I was giving top ups of expressed breast milk and some blood tests were normal.
Since then weight gain has been hit and miss but overall she is slowly but steadily gaining. My question relates to the way she feeds - basically when she is awake she is crying if not being fed. She seems such an unhappy baby and it’s breaking my heart. She sleeps a lot during the day but when awake is crying unless being breast fed. The from 6pm to midnight she is awake and breastfeeding constantly - when I say constantly I mean she can not be put down for anymore than 5 minutes. The only way I can eat or have a shower is if my husband takes her for 30mins or so and passifies with a bottle of expressed milk but even with they she’ll want back on the breast after very little time.
I guess I’m not sure what I’m asking really - but is this normal and does it get better?
I’ve heard of cluster feeding but this doesn’t seem quite that as it’s all day everyday anytime she’s awake then 6hours straight every evening without rest till she falls asleep for a few hours due to shear exhaustion.
I really don’t want to fill her up with formula but I don’t want her to be so exhausted and unhappy either and could persist happily if I thought it was normal. She’s had her latch/swallowing checked by both nhs and private lactation consultant, a small posterior tongue tie divided (of little consequence IMO and certainly didn’t improve anything) and no major symptoms of reflux or allergies

Babies not wanting to be put down and crying at five weeks if not held is quite normal. Is she constantly feeding from you or is she just using your nipple as a dummy and sleeping?

My DS fed constantly and it was tongue tie.
Get baby checked as it can grow back, or might not have been divided properly in the first place. Make sure you see a tongue tie specialist (ATP registered).

It also turned out that he had silent reflux caused by CMPA - discovered much much later as the signs were subtle until we started giving formula (until that point he was ebf). Babies with reflux can feed for comfort as the swallowing relieves it.

In your case though it sounds like baby is hungry so I would guess the tongue tie hasn't been resolved or there is another feeding issue. Tt specialist and/or lactation consultant.

My youngest was like this. She eventually found her thumb and sucked that to pacify herself...freeing my nipples. I got a sling and wore her constantly but had my hands back. A vibrating bouncer was also my friend as she found that soothing if I put her down.
Now she's 4 and I miss being trapped on the sofa by a snuggly newborn. Congratulations and enjoy being the centre of each others universe

DS fed like this so I'd say it's normal. He was either asleep or feeding during the day, and then fed all evening. I just ran with it -fortunately I didn't have to get back to work.
He's nearly 10 now so it was a long time ago and just a warm, fuzzy memory! I've forgotten all the bad bits.

Also I don't like the way people are minimising this and saying it's normal. They did it to me when I started a thread about DS's constant feeding. I was unravelling. When I went to a breastfeeding drop-in and was seen by a lovely kind breastfeeding counsellor with TT training who assessed DS, told me he had tongue tie and actually acknowledged what a bloody difficult time I'd be having and no it was NOT normal, I sobbed with relief.

Please don't let people on the internet dismiss your experience, OP. Trust your instincts and get real life support from the breastfeeding experts.

If your baby wants to be on the breast, just put her there! It does sound like cluster feeding and like she’s trying to up your supply. My daughter slowly gained weight and was like this. Looking back I think in the beginning she probably wasn’t getting enough milk but things did improve with time. She got stronger and became more efficient at feeding and then my milk in turn increased.

However I’d be keeping a close eye on weight gain and nappies. That’s the only real way you can check she’s feeding well (you say you’ve already had latch checked etc).

Otherwise. She’s still so small. Plenty of skin to skin, keep yourself hydrated and fed and just feed feed feed. Rest when you can (expressed top ups sound good). Things will settle and won’t always be like this. Cluster feeding tends to die down around 12 weeks x

Congratulations! My first was like this - just always wanted to be held with a nipple in or just above his mouth - seemed to go on for some time, but I didn't mind and my dh got a cleaner in to help because I literally couldn't do anything but hold him. People like my mum and aunts and neighbours all said to just enjoy the constant cuddles while I could and to relax as much as I could and eat and drink enough to make sure of my milk and rest whenever he did - because he'd be grown up and away from me before I knew it. They were right, too. I hope that you can stop worrying and enjoy your daughter's need for you. From what you have written, the professionals aren't worried about your baby's progress, so you are doing well.

One thing that might help, is putting her to one breast, say the right one for a while then when she wants to feed again 10 mins later, put her to the same (right) breast. Apparently your breasts make fore milk (like a thirst quenching drink), then hind milk (more like food). If the feed constantly and you keep swapping breasts they just get lots of drink which isn’t filling them up.

DS cluster fed for hours in the evening at that age, and a health visitor suggested I try this, and it helped.

Mine was the same until about 3 months old. Basically only happy when he was feeding or asleep (post feed).

It's relentless but acceptance was really the only thing that helped.
Get a flask of tea, a box of biscuits and a box set and don't get off the sofa and try and embrace/enjoy it.

Also master the art of a 3 min shower!

Constant feeding isn't normal, feeling like it's constant is, and only you know which is true. But even then being normal or not doesn't necessarily indicate a problem or not.

If you're happy to continue as is then you'll both be fine in the long run it'll just be hard work. If you think something is wrong it probably is so keep pushing until someone listens.

All of mine were like this and it's relentless and exhausting and it's OK to feel a bit shite.

I found just accepting it was less exhausting so I just prepared my den for the eves with snacks, drinks, screens and blankets and just fed constantly, swapping sides from time to time.

If she is sleeping at times as you say, weeing, pooing, having alert periods and putting on weight then it may juts be a car of riding out this bit.

Seek real life support and get someone to check tongue and latch in case anything may help but please don't feel it's all going wrong, you may just be in the rough bit and it will get better.

Hi, my first was similar - he fed for 90 mins every 3 hours, including at night. I was completely exhausted so from about 2 weeks we used expressed milk at night - DH fed him a bottle while I expressed and we were all up for 15 mins rather than me being up half the night. It made a massive difference very quickly. Yes it's lovely having "cuddles" for hours but it's perfectly ok and normal to need a break.

As he did so well with the expressed milk I ended up doing roughly half BF and half expressed so we could go out and do things without me just sitting and feeding. Every time I felt guilty that he wasn't EBF I reminded myself that he still spent more time BF than an EBF baby who fed for 10 mins at a time - sounds silly but it helped me feel much better! So if your baby is still ok to take a bottle it might be worth carrying on with expressed milk.

I agree with PP that it's worth getting tongue tie checked again and thinking about silent reflux. We did think DS had reflux as he brought up masses of milk but he was putting on weight well so the GP decided he was just "greedy and windy". Charming...!

Hope it gets easier for you soon.

My son was like this and it was not normal. I saw an IBCLC privately who confirmed I had low supply. She said that despite what you read on the internet, cluster feeding shouldn't last for such long periods.

I'm not saying that it can't be normal, but in my case it wasn't. I started topping up with formula and life changed for the better. My son actually slept and stopped crying sometimes. I worked with the IBCLC to increase my supply and whilst I never weaned fully off the formula, I went from supplying 50% of his needs to 90% by 60 months.

Maybe it would be worth seeing the lactation consultant again for a review? Just to set your mind at ease or address any issues if there are any?

Hugs, I know it's all so hard and stressful. Listen to your gut. Deep down I knew something was off, despite all my internet reading.

*6 months

First what is normal is the weight loss after birth. With breastfed babies the goal is to be at birth weight by 2 weeks old.

Second feeding for 6hrs nonstop is not normal. Although, saying that at 5weeks two of my babies were very inefficient nursers. So I’d have to start a feed every 2hrs but each feed would take around 1hr 45mins. So I’d be done with a feed 15mins before the next feed would start. During those 15mins, they’d be mostly asleep and sort of doze with a suck every ten seconds. If I wasn’t paying attention, I did quite easily go from one feed into the next without them coming off the breast.

Third, I would not be expressing milk at this time. Breast pumps do not stimulate your supply. They only empty out what is there. Whereas breastfeeding both stimulates further supply and empties the breasts. So you could quite literally be taking out milk and then the baby is feeding and frustrated because you’ve already expressed the milk leaving very little in the breast for the baby to nurse. So stop expressing milk until around the 12 week mark when breastfeeding is well established.

Fourth, 6 week starts a growth spurt. Look up when they occur. Every growth spurt a baby will double down on their nursing and you will feel like you cannot keep up. But do not panic, your supply will catch up. Often the baby will comfort nurse...not really eating but what they’re doing is stimulating your milk supply to increase. It’s putting in an order for the next day’s milk.

The fore milk and hind milk is spot on. The hind milk is full of fat and protein and fills the baby up. The fore milk is like vitamin water. I’d nurse on one breast until i had two letdowns (for me felt like a thousand ants biting me on my chest), then I did switch breasts.

I agree too with advice to talk to a good lactation consultant. I had one my first baby and she was amazing!

What you describe does seem pretty normal to me - my first lost a lot of weight (did have to be re-admitted for jaundice) then I felt like she was very much on catch up for the first 6-7 weeks. If she is sleeping a lot during the day the feeding isn't constant. The evening is the prime cluster feeding time, I would also be pinned to the sofa from 7-11pm.

It is such a tough time but at the stage you are at now, it will probably ease off a lot soon. 6-8 weeks was a threshold for us, it really reduced after that.

Definitely see a lactation consultant if you can and get checked for tongue tie. There might be something that can be done to improve your latch in the meantime.

I would go and see an lactation consultant again. Whilst this could be within the boundaries of ‘normal’ infant feeding behaviour, it is on the extreme end. It may be that some small adjustments to position & latch can improve your baby’s feeding efficiency and help them become more settled. It’s worth a chat with an expert to find out. You are doing great, hope things settle down for you soon.

My first was like this. It is not normal. Health professionals all dismissed it as colic. I suspect some sort of intolerance or digestive problems which he grew out of at about 2yo. Ds2 was the same but we knew what to do. He had a dummy from day 2 til he was 10mo. Both dc liked to comfort suck. I got him into a routine of feed, wind, awake for 30mins max then sleep. Both dc would start at about 5/6pm with the unexplained and inconsolable crying from about 3weeks old to 2mo. Cluster feeding would be constant.
Ds2 was much quicker together past this stage because of the dummy, very rigorous and prolonged winding and because I realised I had a very fast let down which basically jetted into them. I would hand express into a muslin before putting baby to feed.
I would try to get along to a well established breast feeding clinic. Get tongue tie assessed. Have them assess how feeding is going.
Its relentless when all your friends dc are happily into a routine.
Good luck.