Worried about 10 week old’s breastfeeding habits…

[MintGreenLife]

My DS is 10 weeks old (7 weeks corrected) and has been feeding so much this last week. My understanding was that cluster feeding only lasted a few days, but maybe I’m wrong? At the start of the week three evenings in a row he was feeding from around 4/5pm until 10/11pm near enough none stop. Only way I got him to stop fir a bit was to distract him with a bath or similar. This seemed to improve for a few nights, until Friday evening when he spent a full 2 hours on one boob. I believe it was Thursday evening when he was also being very fussy while feeding, constantly latching on and off and crying. Yesterday we had the latching on and off issue near enough all day. Today he started wanting to feed every hour from 3am, and then had wanted to feed almost constantly since 9am.

Does this sound normal?! He does have a mild tongue tie which we are getting looked at on Wednesday. Before 6 weeks we had no issues with feeding at all, then around 6 weeks this fussing at the breast started on and off, and from 9-10 weeks (this week just gone) he’s been having the epic feeding sessions as per above. I’m finding this really tough as he is exclusively breast fed x

I would do the same and one day he seemed to like it. Still spits it out when he doesn't fancy it though. It's amazing the force they can generate!

I went to someone who teaches and lectures on the subject. She'd say forceps babies almost always benefit from it due to the pressure on the skull. I believe in some European countries it's routine after forceps

Also forceps and also cranial osteopathy or similar! Made an absolutely life changing difference.

As per the different advice, I think sometimes it IS useful to hear that they DO just sometimes feed for hours and if you just need to sit around for a few days with them stuck on the boob, just go for it! Like a pp says, I was led to believe that I should just be cracking on with life by my mum who never breast fed, whereas when I just sat around and watched crap tv with the boob monster hoovering down milk for hours it all went better.

Top tip - I learned to breastfeed lying down and baby would snuggle into me and I would read georgette heyers on a kindle over his head, twas bliss for both of us.

I was harsh about fiddler’s post because the previous one I was recalling was so absolutely awful. Really dangerous and actually quite cruel. This one is nowhere near as bad, but overall I think she’s a) dangerous for new mums and b) more likely than any other poster I’ve seen on here to drive someone to give up breastfeeding.

@Mossstitch thank you for your reply. Weaning is still recommended from 6 months I believe, I have hoping to breastfeed to one year-ish. Glad to know it’s normal!

@JustKeepSw1mming I’ll try again with the dummy then, will try anything 😅

@Eatenpig that’s interesting about it being used as standard. Will definitely consider it!

@Okaygreatthanks so many positive experiences of cranial osteopathy! We have so much going on that it’s got to be worth a try. I’ll try the feeding laying down, however for some reason I end up feeling bad mentally if I stay in bed, I’m much better at least getting up and on the sofa.

We all go by the recommendations at the time but in hindsight I think baby knows best and life is easier if we just follow their lead, took me till the third to realise that tho! 😬 I fed all mine for nearly a year, it does get easier and far more convenient than all that sterilising & heating up bottles, especially when you start getting out and about more! Enjoy your little man👶 ❤️

Absolutely OP, figure out what feels good and roll with it! It’s so different for everyone. Good luck!

@Mossstitch I certainly am following his lead, I suppose it’s just tricky when your expectation are that they should feed x amount of times fir x duration, and that cluster feeding is said to only last two days, and then they spend near enough a whole week latched on! Will just keep reminding myself that it’s normal and won’t always be like this x