Newborn only sleeps after a bottle, is he not having enough milk from breastfeeding?

[Cupcakejamlover]

I’ve had my first baby around 2,5 weeks ago and feeding has been a whole story. He was born with a lung infection and had to be tube fed for around 5 days which i think messed up his feeding so much. We had to slowly come off the tube, topping up with bottle of pumped breastmilk, then slowly coming off the bottle with slowly trying to exclusively breastfeeding. a few days ago i was able to exclusively breastfeed and things went well for the first few days, however now he falls asleep on my breast every 10 minutes, as soon as i put him down he wakes up to feed again, and does not sleep longer than 1-1.5 hours at the time. (He used to do 3 hours) i was convinced he was just cluster feeding and this was normal... however today i went out and husband was at home with baby for one feed and gave him 2 bottles of pumped breastmilk which baby drank straight away and even as he finished he was still trying to suckle and eat more... after these two bottles baby went straight asleep for 3 hours like he used to when we used to top him off with bottled breastmilk.. i’m now wondering that hes not getting enough milk from the breast/ is being over tired and falls asleep without getting full? Whats the solution for this? I’m knackered and cant wake up for an hour every hour 🥺 any advice helps,
Thank you

At 2 and a half weeks it's very hard to guage any pattern as there'll be lots of cluster feeding and dips and troughs. I'd also say 3 hour sleeps at that age are quite long anyway. As long as he's producing lots of wet and dirty nappies and is a good colour, gaining weight, I wouldn't worry. It is harder to get milk from the breast so he may be getting tired but waking every hour is pretty normal.

If you can get to a bf clinic to check larch and for tongue tie though just to be sure.

Congratulations on your baby! Newborns that have bottles are less able to regulate how much they take as it essentially pours into their mouth so when your little one has a bottle, they are likely to take more than they actually need/want and so are fuller for longer. When breastfeeding, they tend to stop when they want to and so maybe don't take as much. They can also get more tired when breastfeeding as they have to work quite hard for it. I would recommend trying to keep your little one awake for a bit longer when on the breast...tickle feet/cheeks if looking sleepy or if falls asleep, take them off, change nappy and try to reattach for a bit longer. Hopefully they will take a bit more from the breast and then have a longer sleep. Still pretty early days so very frequent feeding is very normal.