Stressed beyond belief with newborn feeding

[glasshalffull0]

I just need a bit of advice/support/your experiences please

I started EBF baby but she never could latch on correctly despite help from several specialists and she would choke at the boob every time. My mental health was at an all time low and I didn’t leave the house for 2 weeks because of the fear that she’d get hungry so I stopped. I now express about 4-5 times a day and top up with formula in between

baby is much better on the bottle and doesn’t choke. My issue now is, is that sometimes she seems to over eat the formula- she won’t stop chugging it down even when she starts grunting and as soon as she’s done feeding she sicks up quite a bit of the milk. She seems better with the breast milk but I understand this could be because it’s thinner and she digests it quicker?

im all over the show with the quantities to give her out of fear of her being sick all the time of not getting enough! Any advice is hugely appreciated

I should add my baby is 3 weeks old tomorrow

What size teats are you using on the bottle? Is it worth dropping down a size so baby can't get as much as quickly?

Also google paced feeding for bottle fed babies.

Are you burping at regular intervals when feeding? Sometimes the break helps to regulate themselves a bit.

Are you pace feeding? (look up some videos if you haven’t come across this term)

Some sick up can be normal for some babies.

Expressing a pita. If I were you I would try and sort that out by using shields as a short term stop gap so that there is a deep latch and then getting tongue tie checked by a proper qualified person (e.g. lactation consultant) not a gp, midwife or health visitor as in my experience they pretend they know how to check and fob you off.

@stackhead @wishIwasonholiday10 Is paced feeding where you regularly stop? I do it sometimes but she gets stressed out because she’s still hungry. She’s on the mam 0 teat so I think the smallest already? Thank you for responding

My 5 week old does this sometimes she is bottle fed she drinks it too quick even though she is on the slowest teat I spot regularly and giver her a break but also in my case it's a tiny bit of reflux mixed in so I try keep
Her upright for a while after the bottle before putting her back down

Get a slow release teet to slow her drinking down.The MAM bottles are great.

Don’t use the teets that come with the ready-feed bottles, they’re too free flowing.

You can also regulate the flow of milk, by tilting the bottom of the bottle down a little, and only having the teet half-full of milk, there won’t be as much pressure on the milk flow.

One of the posters below (@Thatcat ) has given a good description - it also means having the teat horizontal so it’s half full and they can regulate the flow and feeding them upright. I think we were recommended to stop and burp every few ounces.

I also agree with getting tongue tie properly assessed. Mine had this and I couldn’t get her to latch at all in the early days but everyone just told me I was BF wrong. I read somewhere that tongue tie babies often spit up and that was certainly the case with mine.

I’ve just tried the paced feeding with expressed milk and baby is a lot happier and calmer thank you everyone. Hopefully that was the issue and the calmness continues when she has some formula!

I hear you, mama. It sounds like you've been through a tough journey. Don't feel guilty about switching to formula – a fed and happy baby is what matters most.
For overfeeding, try paced feeding – take breaks mid-bottle to see if baby cues she's full. Smaller, more frequent feeds might also help. Talk to your pediatrician about quantities and any concerns about spit-up. You're doing great!

Agree with the pacefeeding!

Re amounts, for expressed milk you're right it is more easily digested but also the nutrient content in the milk you produce adapts as baby grows so as a rough guide they'll only need 1-1.5oz per hour since last feed, and never more than 4oz per feed.

I didn't formula feed so I'd assume just follow the guide on the tin and you can't go too wrong!

I also found a video like this when my baby was little and it helped me when I was worried about sick, it looks like loads comes up and can be quite scary but it's actually very rare for a baby to throw up the entire feed! Of course if they are throwing up lots more than this, or you still don't feel right about it anyway go get them checked out- it's never silly when they're this tiny.

vm.tiktok.com/ZGenJnSJ9/

If you don't have tiktok just fill a bottle up to an ounce mark and spill it over your kitchen counter 😂

You're doing great, it's such early days and so stressful worrying about them being hungry but I promise you're doing a good job xxx