3 week old feeding advice

[Mamaux]

I have a 3 week old baby who has a tongue tie that has been snipped. Feeding has beena struggle since day 1 and I have had to switch to expressing and formula top up.

My question is, it takes my boy over an hour to drink between 2-3 oz. Is this normal? He is then hungry not long after and we start the same routine again. By the time I then express I'm getting snippets of 30 mins rest throughout the day and night.

We started with Avent Natural bottles, trued new teats and have now gone to Mam newborn bottles which seem better. I just don't know what to do but it is becoming unsustainable.

TIA - a very tired Mum

I think the amount is totally fine but an hour is a long time to be feeding - could you try moving to next teat size up?

This is what I was wondering. It says to use the next test size after 2 months, so I was wondering if it was OK to do so. I think I will order some and give it a go. Thank you for your reply :)

Yes, ours is only 5 months and is already on the 9 months plus teat! Hope that helps

I'd be wary of moving to the next size teat too early if you want to get back to breastfeeding. The advice would be to pace feed when feeding with bottles if so.

Has baby's latch improved since the procedure? My little one had his done last week (although he's 12 weeks now). Things got more difficult for us initially but are improving now.

If wanting to get back on the breast id suggest looking up ways to get a deeper latch. It may take a bit of practice as baby is having to relearn. Look up videos on koala hold and the flipple technique, both of these encourage a deeper latch

Also, with my first we used a supplemental nursing system (SNS). Medela do one but we made our own. It's a bit of a faff but allowed us to use top ups so we got reassurance with how much milk he was getting but also allowed him to work on his latch after his tongue tie was cut.

Good luck, I've done the whole bf, expressing and bottle top ups with my first and it's exhausting and incredibly stressful. It takes over your life for a while! We got there in the end and it did get much easier after a while

Thanks @KG1145. I have now quit on the breastfeeding front. Everyone told me his latch was fine but I knew he wasn't getting any milk and this was proven as, even with top ups, he lost 10% of his birth weight. I don't seem to produce enough milk either as I only manage to pump 8oz over 24 hrs of pumping 3 hourly. With pumping, I know exactly what he is getting.

Really wish I could persevere but I was getting zero rest and was beginning to resent being a mum 😢