Breastfeeding Problems

[Cheeseaddict1]

I'm struggling to establish BF with my 4 week old. She regularly falls asleep very early on on the feed (less than 5 minutes) and sometimes doesn't seem satisfied after even a long feed so I have to top up with either expressed milk or formula. I try to use an exaggerated latch but after a few sucks she often detached and seeks out a shallower latch.
She also dribbles a lot of milk when on the breast and bottle feeding.

What am I doing wrong? Despite desperately wanting to BF I'm starting to think it just won't happen for us and it's heartbreaking

What makes you think she's not satisfied? It may just be that she's cluster feeding at the minute

Is she going weight and gave plenty of especially wet but also dirty nappies?

I also think it’s cluster feeding. Her tummy is tiny and breastfed babies are grazers

*gaining

Hey there,
I had great troubles trying to breast feed and ended up formula feeding only from 6 weeks as it just wasn't going to work for me. I will tell you my very long story in the hopes that some of it is helpful to you. If you haven't already I suggest reading the La Leche Leagues "Womanly Guide to Breastfeeding" and contacting a lactation consultant. Here goes..
My little one was born unable to latch properly, I had several midwives try to help her feed but only one in about 10 of them was able to get her to feed and she had to basically force her head into position to do so. She started getting hypoglycaemic and she was jaundiced and so the midwives at the hospital said we should formula top up.
We saw several lactation consultants and it turned out she had a lip and tongue tie. Which we got snipped ASAP but as she was born just before Christmas it took a while for us to get this all sorted.
We were then put on a tortuous regime for every 3 hours that involved trying to breastfeed twice and pumping. I was put on domperidone to help improve supply. I could never pump more than 100mls daily (which at the time i considered a great success). Before I ended breastfeeding I was pumping for around 4 hours a day in total to try and keep the milk flowing. LO was so used to getting instant food by this point she would just cry at the breast as it wasn't working the way she wanted it to. I ended up stopping as I just couldn't do it anymore. This was the right thing for us, but I admire you for continuing to try. It really was the most stressful part of pregnancy and birth as I felt like I just wasn't "doing enough". Even my GP told me that the first 6 weeks are the most important and said that I was allowed to stop trying as she had not been able to pump either.
To try and keep LO awake during feeds (she would get so tired of having to work so hard) we would change her nappy when she fell asleep at the breast, or take her clothes off, or gently squeeze her foot, or gently rotate her arms in large circles. You could also try wiping a damp cloth on her.
If she is dribbling milk I would suggest it MIGHT be that you have a large supply and it is coming out very fast. I can't know this for sure, but I have a friend who has this issue (its ironic as we have opposite problems :p). A lactaction consultant would be able to tell you.
Also we were told that the best bottles to use to encourage breastfeeding were Dr Browns bottles with a narrow neck teat. And the best way to encourage breastfeeding while using a bottle is to use paced bottle feeding.
Here is a link to the KellyMom website. It really is the best resource out there for breastfeeding help :)

kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/feeding-tools/bottle-feeding/

I hope it works out for you and your problems are resolved really quickly. And remember you are a fantastic mum no matter what the outcome :)

Thank you, it's so hard worrying you aren't providing everything your baby needs.

Has she been checked for tongue tie? The frequent feeding doesn't worry me much but for a 4wo to be dribbling out lots of milk suggests that she isn't latching efficiently. Is she over birth weight? How are her nappies? If she's gained steadily up to now I doubt there's a significant problem and she may just be cluster feeding.

Get to a BF support group or get a lacration consultant to come to you and observe you.

Be careful with topping up too much. It's a difficult balance I know but if you want to BF but keep topping up, your body will never make enough milk for her because it's not getting the order for how much she actually wants.

I agree with PP. Check weight gain, nappy output and tongue tie.