Breastfeeding newborn too often?

[Persephone1985]

I've got a newborn daughter (6 weeks) and exclusively breastfeeding. I'm feeding her on demand and often soothing her with the breast too, so basically whenever she cries or seems unsettled and nothing else is working I'll put her on the boob and she instantly calms down. She often 'roots' when she wakes up from a nap, whether it's been a 40 minute nap or a 3 hour one.

However, it seems like the more frequently I feed her, she more unsettled she seems generally.

She's not a great sleeper, he can be very fidgety for what seems like hours, and it takes her ages to get to sleep sometimes, although she's fed, nappy changed, looks and seems tired, crying etc. We were thinking it might be because she has wind. However, today I popped out on my own for an hour and left her with my partner, asleep. She woke up crying and rooting, so I came home, but by the time I'd got home (2-3 minutes as I was just at our allotment behind the house) she had stopped crying and fallen back to sleep!

She seems a lot more settled generally today, for the last couple of days I have been feeding her every 2 hours or so and sometimes even more frequently, because she just wouldn't settle, was really fidgety, rooting, not falling to sleep, crying (but not screaming her head off or anything) so i usually just pre-empt it by giving her milk but I am now thinking that maybe I am doing this too often when really what she needs to do is go back to sleep? Also what I should mention is that often she is feeding for a bit then ends up chewing on my nipple, I try to take her off at that point but needless to say my nipples are on fire at the moment.

It's almost like she gets boob 'on the brain' or something and I was thinking maybe not getting full, proper feeds. I think she is able to get a really good latch when hungry but what I am thinking is that maybe if she;s not actually that hungry, it's causing her to not latch very well as well.

TLDR: My question really is, has anyone else experienced a fidgety/difficult to settle baby after feeding quite frequently?

No such thing as too often imo but you can get oversupply, mine was quite extreme but i just used each boob in 12hr stints to keep a lid on it. Poor DD was nearly being drowned each feed 😂

My daughter fed every 45minutes to 2h during the day until about 6 months.

During a feeding aversion this could be for just a few seconds! Feeding for a total of 1-2 minutes during day light and then fed for 5-10 minutes every 2-3h overnight

She's nearly 4 and still doesn't have the biggest appetite but some how gains weight beautifully

Yes we did. It turned out he had Tongue Tie and was probably fairly hungry

It feels mean but pinch her nose or press her face into your boob so she unlatches when she starts chewing. No good for either of you if you have raw nipples.

I don’t think mine let go of a nipple for the first year.

@Persephone1985 how is her latch? If your nipples are a bit sore, have a look at this video to see if it helps.

This information from Kellymom might help too.

And are you going to any BFing Support Groups. I found them helped to try and distinguish between what was BFing and what was normal baby behaviour. What you've got going on might just be the 4th trimester

It sounds normal and being unsettled when on the boob is classic cluster feeding. Keep an eye out for CMPA symptoms though.

I would say sounds normal apart from the sore nipples - at 5 weeks I would have thought they’d have settled down by now so maybe get someone to check the latch and check for tongue tie.

Yes this both times with mine.

It does get easier though!

Also wanted to add that my first was very much like this and my second fed for about 5 minutes every two hours.

One thing that was different is that I'd read Baby Calming by Caroline Deacon in my second PG

I had this with DD1, I used to joke I was a human dummy. It is very demanding and after about 6 weeks I tried her with a real dummy but she gagged and wouldn't take it. I ebf DD2 but introduced a dummy from birth and it was much easier. Can you get your baby to take a dummy?

I never understood the phrase "using you as a dummy" surely it's "using the dummy as a nipple". 😂
Seriously though, it is very tough and I think probably normal. Doesn't really settle until 3 months or so. With DC2 we never managed a dummy but DH got more involved in soothing and that helped (my nipples) a lot.

Breastfeeding was how I got into gaming. Nothing else I could do to stay occupied with my glorified nipple tassle.

You shouldn't be sore though. Are you breaking the latch properly and not getting into a lazy position for nursing? Don't let her chew, it gets worse when they're teething if you let them.

Went through this with all four of mine. You can never overfeed a BF baby. She'll let you know when she's had enough, don't worry.