Newborn feeding (vicious cycle)

[GHH]

Our Little One is feeding constantly (arm it's every 2 hours), which is fine as she is 13 days old, but she's bawling her eyes out and screaming, as soon as she wakes, for milk - there is no gradual cues. We're doing the paced feeding, stopping now and then to bltry and burp her, but she doesn't stop sucking the teat for milk when she's had enough or really has a break, gets so tense, arches and cries when she doesn't have the milk. We're told that she will stop when she's had enough but we feel like she could drink 200L of milk and still want more.

We got her tongue tie fixed a couple of days ago but this doesn't seem to have resolved the demand for milk, or how worked up she gets with it.

She doesn't have colic either, apparently.

Can't breastfeed properly because my milk and her demands doesn't match due to my milk coming in late and no time to express, while trying to get sleep, clean bottles, make up formula etc. Try and settle her with the breast but she pushes it away because the milk isn't enough - can also be a latching issue but she doesn't give me time to place her properly on it etc.

We've asked midwives and feeding team for help but told it's normal and to feed on demand but don't overfeed her. She wants so much milk so we're feeding on demand and then she's sick because she's overfed herself (bit of a contradiction). We have tried to stop the feed when she has taken too much, but as mentioned in the previous paragraph, she roots and cries for milk until she's out for the count.

We're at our wits end 😭 has anybody else experienced this?

This sounds exhausting and upsetting.
Might a dummy help? If she just really wants to suck all the time.

If sounds like silent reflux to me and it could possibly be cmpa.

My daughter started at 7-10 days old, she would scream like she has never been fed before as feeding would sooth the reflux but the milk would cause her more pain so she wanted to feed again.

We eventually determine that she was allergic to milk and other things through my diet although has reflux in addition. She had intermittent feeding aversions and has been a real challenge to feed... She's 6 now and it hasn't changed! I would ask for a specific breastfeeding support. My son had his 100% tongue tie cut on day 8, we had only been able to breastfeed as I had been quite experience with trialling different holds with my first born. He only fed in a rugby hold where i basically sat him up and dropped my nipple in his mouth. It took him a bit of time after the tongue it was cut to get to grips with feeding again. We then were able to look at other holds.

Could you try hand expressing before a feed to get your milk flowing before putting her on the breast?
I had the opposite problem with my daughter as she wouldn't always take bottle but would breastfeed. I popped a bottle after she had had a feed every feed. She wouldn't take the milk and was uninterested at first, I didn't need her to take the milk just get used to the feel of the bottle in her mouth and associate it with food. My daughter has awful latch because of her allergies and reflux, I didn't feel what a good latch looked/felt like until I breastfeed my second a few days after his tongue tie division - I breastfeed my daughter until 10 months before we had to go on to formula for our own health.

Both my dds did this at this age. I remember the first bedtime I did alone with my youngest and then two year old. Two week old dd2 drank so much milk- she was breastfed so I couldn’t see what was going in that she was sick all over the toddlers bed, all over me and herself it was insane amount for a two week old! I think it was silent reflux, they would drink to soothe the burning and create a vicious cycle.
We took my second dd to an osteopath as I was determined to try everything to not go through the constant over feeding and waking up screaming every hour we had with dd1.
I think the osteopath helped, she also said to make sure you do lots of tummy time as strengthening the muscles helps reduce reflux.
Does your baby have any signs of cmpa? If so go to the GP before anything else. I have heard of people having success with goats milk for reflux/ silent reflux but it is expensive.

Do you want to breastfeed or are you happy to move to formula? If you want to breastfeed, I strongly strongly recommend paying for a session with an IBCLC for some one to one support. They are incredibly helpful, especially after a TT division, as DC need to "relearn" how to latch with full movement of the tongue.

You should have been told that 48hrs after a TT division, things tend to get worse. Then they start to improve as the wound heals. So you need to get past these next couple of days and then reassess again. An osteopath will also help. DD2 had a 90% TT that wasn't corrected until 9w old. We did 4 osteopath sessions and it was very helpful. She always had a massive nap straight afterwards and was so chilled all day.

Then I agree with pp that you could also consider silent reflux. GP will try and put you on infant gavison to start with. We did find this helpful but you need to massively reduce the dose on the packet or it gives DC a lot of constipation. For our DD2, the dose was supposed to be 1 sachet - i think we did 0.5 and it worked without causing her too many issues. If that doesn't work, omeprazole is next but to be honest, I tried to avoid that as you need to taper up and taper down and I was worried about long term side effects. Lots of people have found it very effective though.

Only ~10% of people that have cmpa can tolerate goats milk. For majority of people they have to avoid all mammalian milks.

Ahh yes I didn’t mean try goats milk if you suspect CMPA but if no signs of it I have heard anecdotal stories of goats milk helping as it is easier to digest that cows milk.