Breastfeeding all day

[Prussel]

This is a bit of a ramble so bear with me! DS is 7 weeks old and breastfed apart from one formula top up before bed. We had a tricky start to breastfeeding, slow weight gain and eventually diagnosed with a tongue tie that was released last week, which has definitely improved his latch.
He has always fed a lot, about every 1.5-2 hours and could easily do 30 mins a side. Lactation consultant felt he was "snacking" because he was tired from trying to feed with his tongue tie and a lot of it was comfort sucking not feeding. I'm trying now to identify the non nutritive sucking and pop him off at that stage but I find it hard to identify and I haven't really noticed a change in feeding pattern since TT release.
My DH or MIL have sometimes taken him out in the buggy for a couple of hours to let me sleep and he's gone about 3-3.5 hours between feeds then with no issue, just has a bigger feed when he comes back. But when he's with me he wants to feed far more frequently. My query is, should I be trying to do longer active feeds and stretch out the intervals or just let him find his own rhythm? Does he want to feed more often when he's with me because he knows it's there or have we picked up bad habits from the early days? I was very anxious about his weight gain before the TT release so would basically let him park himself on the boob all day to get whatever milk he could and I still feel like we're in that pattern, he can feed for up to 9 hours a day. If that's what he needs that's fine but if I could do longer feeds and longer stretches in between it would be great to get more of a chance to nap/eat/tackle the endless washing! Any advice would be much welcomed!

My DS was like this and I'd say at 7 weeks it's pretty normal, definitely not a bad habit.

If you want to get him fuller quicker you could try a few breast compressions, but honestly I don't think there a problem or that you're doing anything wrong.

It was a bit of a shock when I had my second and she fed for 5 minutes every 3 hours

Thank you - I'll probably just leave him to it if it's normal enough for his age-just found it interesting that he could go without a feed for so long when he's taken out! I think I had expected to be like your LO at this stage and having short feeds with a decent break between!

Totally normal. Don’t forget if he had a tongue tie he’s probably still catching up. After his tongue tie got released at 12 weeks it took DS a month to get used to his improved latch and then another 1-2 months to finally catch up to his birth centile. After that he began to slowly drop feeds in preperation for weaning. Even now at 14 months he still feeds more frequently than other kids his age (3-4 times a day) but it’s normal.

I found that once mine got a bit bigger and more efficient at feeding the feeding all the time stopped. They also start getting more interested in the world around them after 12 weeks.
DD has learnt that if she grabs my breasts with both hands and clenches and unclenches her hands repeatedly the milk comes out faster. She also gives them a good head butting first. Dd is 6 months.

I had expected to be like your LO at this stage and having short feeds with a decent break between! that's very rare though

I agree with the PP that it sounds normal. My eldest was like that, including being fine the the times other people took him out to give me a break. It changed dramatically at 11/12 weeks when he suddenly got the hang of feeding more efficiently and I was told that is normal too.

Thanks all for the reassurance! I was probably expecting too much too soon from the tongue tie release-will give it more time and let him dictate the feeds. More time for chilling and box sets I suppose!