Breastfeeding helppp please

[Sassy306]

DD was born 9 days ago and due to my flat nipples I couldn't get her to latch properley. Eventually caved and used a nipple sheild which she feeds from great. I collect the let down in a hakka cup and feed that as a top up if needed.

During the day she mostly sleeps for approx 3 hour's, wakes and feeds, has some calm awake time then sleeps again with no crying at all until bedtime..... The last 3 nights she has been awake and fussy from about 9pm to 3am. Won't settle, constantly on and off the boob, falls asleep on boob so put her back in cot and 2 mins later she's crying and rooting again with her mouth. I change her, wind her, walk around trying to soothe her and it goes on like this till eventually after the millionth time on the boob she finally sleeps till about 7am then it's back to every 3 hour's

What am I doing wrong? She is defintley getting plenty milk as i can see it in the shield :( I tried giving her a dummy in case she just wants to suck to soothe but she sucks it so frantically it makes me think she's starving.

I have a breastfeeding consultant coming on Friday to help with latch so we can discontinue using the shield but if that doesn't work in gonna have to switch to formula :/

You’re not doing anything wrong, and I don’t think the baby is either.

Is weight gain going well so far? Nappies look like they should? IF so, the sleep thing isn’t an ovation that things are wrong with feeding - more like an indication that the baby wants to be close to you.
Babies need to feed at night because of the relevant hormone production being increased over night, so feeding then really gets your supply going - this is fine (annoying, tiring, but fine for the baby).

Babies often improve latch as their mouths get a little bigger and their control improves. I know what it’s like to struggle in the early days - it’s awful, demoralising and I cried a lot about it, so do get as much support as you can. Also great that you’re able to use the Hakaa has a top-up supply. Does this give you any respite that at least one feed can be given by someone else so you can rest?

This is absolutely completely normal. Research cluster feeding and you will feel much more reassured.

My first son was the same and I’d be up with him between 11pm to 4am with him feeding pretty much continually - it was exhausting but something that the majority of breast feeding babies do in the first few weeks of life.

All seems normal. You are doing a fantastic job. I remember the first few weeks as being so tired that I couldn't speak. I was living off 3 hours of broken sleep due to how often DC was feeding. It does settle soon, you just need to ride with it I am afraid.