3 day old feeds with 15 minute gaps

[newmum1april2015]

I"m now in to my 36th hour of constant feeds with 15 minute gaps. We've been told our boy is tongue tied but can't get this fixed until after the bank holiday. Has anyone else had this experience, the next 48 hours until we can get the tongue clipped seems so daunting. I am tempted to use formula but he is filling his nappies and they're the right colour!?

My DS was like this (he also had a tongue tie), the feeding was never ending but it did improve when his TT was clipped and he could feed more effectively. I know it's hard but it's also around the time your milk is coming in so topping up with formula could effect that. Also a newborn's stomach is tiny so they really do need to feed little and often.
I'm sure it'll get easier soon (it did for us, he's 17 months now and only feeds once or twice a day) but until then, do you have someone, OH maybe? That can do literally everything else? Nappy changes, bringing you copious amounts of food etc?
Hang on in there!

thank you so much, hopefully over the next 24 hours my milk will come in and he'll slow down. my OH is doing lots to help, i just wish he could breast feed for me! i know what you mean about formula affecting milk supply. would using a teat so early on, even just once or twice, confuse him?

Stomach will be tiny. So they do feed very frequently - when you say 15 min gaps this could be just due to that. I remember timing from start of feed- have one side, wind, nappy change to wake up a bit. Feed other side, wind, sleep for 20/30 mins . Start again. At least until tummy got a bit bigger. And mine were big ones without the. If he has to work harder/longer to get the milk the gap would be shorter. Let DH do everything else and rest as much as you can

Without tt *

We held off bottles at that age but needed to top up with expressed milk when he wasn't gaining weight and also when he struggled to latch again for a day or two after the TT snip. On the advice of the lactation consultant we did 'finger feeding' which involved holding a feeding tube on a clean finger with the other end in a bottle of expressed milk which DS sucked on (the sucking helped strengthen his tongue).
I know some people manage to introduce a bottle very early without issue and it didn't cause us any problems when we did after a couple of weeks (multiple breastfeeding issues which were all eventually resolved but we did briefly use top ups).
I think it just depends on the baby, complicated little creatures that they are!
I'm glad to hear you've got good support, I couldn't have coped breastfeeding in those early weeks without my DH doing everything else. I know what you mean about wishing he could do it for you though! I just tried to turn it around to my favour when I could "no I can't possibly
make dinner/do any housework", I'm needed here on the sofa watching telly, eating cake and feeding our baby!"

It's not so much that using a teat would confuse him, but that his feeding is what's telling your body to make milk.

If he's filling his nappies well, that's great!

Mixed feeding isn't the great evil people sometimes say it is - but if you do a formula feed, then overall you're going to end up working harder to get things back on track. So, if it isn't medically necessary then it really would be better to avoid it (and that would only happen from about day 5 since he's got reserves until then - and your midwife would tell you, they're checking carefully for this).

If you mix feed, you're very likely to have to stop breastfeeding before you want to. And it really is worth fighting on: once it's established, breastfeeding is a wonderful experience for both you and your baby.

As magpie said, make sure your OH does everything for now, including bringing you food and plenty of water in bed. Eat hot food, drink lots and lots of water, and rest as much as you can.

If you can get the lying down feeding position working, that's really worthwhile: it let's you rest a bit. It can be a bit tricky while the baby is so small, but worth looking up on the Internet, and maybe asking your midwife for help. I found that the baby needed to be lower than I expected (ie further from my head) , and that I had to lie really on my side (ie I was lying more on my back than I should).

If it's getting really hard, then consider getting a lactation consultant to help you - they'll work with you to get your feeding going as well as possible. I paid £90 for a 90 minute session, and I'm so glad I did. I'm certain that's the only reason I was able to continue breastfeeding, and I'll always be grateful we had that.

Good luck, and congratulations!

My LO is three weeks and although not as bad as 15 minutes, at nighttime I was every 30 minutes which was so hard. When dh was on paternity leave, he was heroic and did EVERYTHING else and did all he could to get me any sleep at all during the day.

LOnnow three weeks and it's starting to ease up

Just wanted tonlet you know you're 'normal' and not alone (I felt I was doing something 'wrong' and felt very alone).

Good luck ... And congratulations!

I'm going to go against the tide here op. It's almost certainly not the best bf advice but I'd give a bottle. I really don't see how a person can survive on 15 minutes sleep at a time for 5/6 days. It is just your baby putting his order in and encouraging your supply but I would have thought 36 straight hours would be enough to have a break. It will get easier. When ds had his Tt snipped bf became more comfortable. Of course it's entirely your decision whether or not to give f but I don't truly believe that one small amount of f will effect you bf if it's what you want.

My ds is tongue tied he's due to have it cut on Tues. He's bottle fed 5oz although I do have to put a tea towel/muslin under his chin as his to causes him to spit back out so he'd be saturated otherwise. He's gained weight & fed regular every 3/4 hrs. If ff is going to make life a lot easier for you & baby will feed better (ie taking more & going longer between feeds) then go for it. Ff does not make you a bad mum, bf is only best when it suits both mum & baby and feeding every 15 min doesn't sound like it's suiting either of you. Go with whatever your gut instinct tells you.

give some formula so you can get some rest! one or two small amounts of formula is not going to mean you can't go on to ebf. I'm living proof of that. we had to give 60ml after every feed and now since about 4 weeks he's ebf. mine loved suckling so no nipple confusion here but at such a young age I'd give it to your dc from a spoon or small medicine cup or similar.

Thank you all so much for your tips and advice. I decided to get my OH to give some 'for hungry babies formula' whilst i went to bed. he took about 15ml and went straight off to sleep giving me 3 glorious hours of sleep. he's been much better now, i continue to BF but i know now i can use a little formula if i need to

good. really pleased you got some sleep. 15 ml is a teeny amount so don't stress over it. I would however just stick to normal formula. no real experience of hungry baby formula but I found the normal was absolutely fine for my very hungry caterpillar in the early days. x

Fantastic that you've got some sleep. You just can't function on that little sleep! I'd give a little f if you need to and if you want to ebf address it after you get get the Tt snipped and your latch can be better so your LO can get enough and allow you some rest!