"grazing" baby

[ClareC]

My daughter is two weeks old now and has recently gone from feeding for 20 minutes, sleeping for 3 hours to wanting to feed pretty much constantly! She is gaining weight no problem so presumably there is enough milk and she is eating (certainly looks like she is, appears to be sucking and swallowing).

Its pretty hard going for me....... today for example I have got nothing done other than be here for her 24 / 7 is this normal? is there anything I should be doing?

I intend to introduce her to a bottle in a couple of weeks so she can be given expressed milk (and i will know how much she is eating) but have been advised not to do this any earlier as it may ruin her accepting the breast - if it is just a case of her being particularly hungry I would top her up with formula but given the bottle advice can't even do this!

Advice welcome!! Thank you

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

Babies on the boobs do feed constantly. Breast milk is easily digested so you will find every two hours onwards she will want feeding. My son is 5 months and still feeds every two hours. During growth spurts you will find she will feed even more..so it does feel like you have a baby constantly stuck to the boobs!! So I would not bother having a bottle of formula as your daughter will build up enough milk supply for herself by nursing on your breast. The first few weeks they are constantly on the boobs in order to build up your supply ( enough to satisfy them) and then it should settle down and they should nurse at regular intervals.

As for the bottles, my son was accepting bottles of expressed milk in the beginning and then absolutely utterly refused it later, so all this nipple confusing is tosh, I think it just boils down to the baby and what they feel like, some will take it, some won't, some will change their minds and so on.

Honestly, unless your baby is losing weight, I would not worry, she is doing what she is supposed to do.

I have to feed my son throughout the night also since breast milk does not keep him full for the whole 10 hours that he sleeps!!

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

BREAST FEEDINGThis website is good for information on breastfeeding!

[The Nappy Lady]

Hi ClareC,

It is almost certainly a growth spurt, entirely normal and usually lasts a few days at a time. It will happen on and off and few times in the coming weeks.

The best thing to do is just settle in with a good book or some DVDs and feed away. Make the most of it because in a years time you wont get 5 minutes to sit and relax believe me (spend most days running after my toddler and it is exhausting!).

General advice is to wait to introduce a bottle at 6 weeks because if you do it earlier it can cause nipple confusion. My personal experience is that by 6 weeks my daughter was so used to breast feeding she simply would not take a bottle. With No.2 I tried with a bottle sooner, but she still rejected it. If you are determined enough I think you can persevere and find a nipple (edited to say sorry, I mean a teat) that suits your baby, but I could never be bothered frankly. All the sterlising, mixing up feeds etc. just seems so much more hassle than breast feeding which is always there, on tap and the right temperature. But I appreciate there are reasons why people do need to be able to give bottle feeds too.

Your body will adapt to your daughter's demands, and will produce more milk for her, so don't worry about that. As you say you can see she is growing and doing fine, so no reason to worry, or to think you HAVE to top her up with a bottle (unless she is failing to thrive and you are given medical advice to do so, which is an entirely different matter).

All babies are different too when it comes to breast feeding, my first would feed for an hour, then go 3-4 hours. My 2nd was a 'snacker' she'd be on and off the breast all the time - a 15 minute feed, a half hour sleep, wake up for another 15 minute feed. It seemed to work for her though - the Midwife had to weigh her 3 times when she came to check her at a week old because she couldn't believe my little 7'10 bundle of joy had put on so much weight so fast - by 3 weeks old she was an ounch short of 10lbs!

Hope this reassures you a bit.

Molly

[gwod]

I think that babies have a real growth spurt at about three weeks, both developmentally and in size, so this super feeding will pass, and your day will regain its structure.

I have always done mixed feeding and none of my kids got confused between boob and bottle, but when they are small, feeding is slow however you do it, (as is sterilising pumping and washing!!!) so I would give in, make a flask of tea to have beside you in the sitting room, get a big box set of your favourite HBO tv series, and invite your chums to come and chat to you while you and your baby snuggle up for a giant feedathon. Its fine if nothing gets done, no-one expects it of you right now - you're growing a little human.

Good luck!

[nikki73]

Hi Clare

My baby would feed for an 1hr30 at a time every 1hr30. I really worried that I wasn't giving her enough milk o I started expressing and giving her bottles despite all the advice to the contrary - I think she was a week or 10 days old. no nipple confusion but maybe i was just lucky. It was really hard work but i found it reassuring to know that she was getting 2 or 3 decent feeds a day. What also helped was giving up on getting things done and forgetting about the phone and internet most of the time. Things settle by the time she was 6 or 7 weeks.

[The Nappy Lady]

gwod,

Very interesting - did you mix bottles and breast from day 1 and did they accept any teat on the bottle?

So funny the way each baby can be so different.

Molly

[lorraineliyanage]

I seem to recall spending those first few months with my boobs out all the time, couldn't be bothered to keep unclipping the nursing bra, just seemed easier to let it all hang out!

[Pickle]

Yet another reply to reassure you that it's normal. If you google "cluster feeding" you'll find out more, my son did this a lot (and I can sympathise, I remember the days where all I did was feed, get completely exhausted, finally get him to sleep, only to have him wake again an hour later). Get yourself some chocolate, plenty of fluids, and some good tv and ride it out - in a couple of days you may find your milk "comes in" all over again as she's increased your supply. You may well be rewarded for all your hard work by a good weight gain this week!

P x

[gwod]

Molly, I did mixed feeding from about 2 weeks with my first due to b/feeding troubles, bottlefed no2 from the outset, and breastfed no's 3 with one bottle in the day from the outset, No 4 bfed and added a bottle after about a month. Turns out it all worked fine, all kids will adjusted healthy and happy. I think it shows that we mustnt feel there is one holy grail of parenting - lots of ways work! (Only ever tried one sort of teat!)

[Pickle]

My son was fed using a bottle (expressed milk mainly, but sometimes formula if I couldn't express enough) from his 2nd week due to his tongue tie. I continued offering the breast even though he couldn't latch properly to get milk, then once his tongue tie was fixed managed to re-establish breastfeeding at around 8 weeks old. He never seemed to have an issue with nipple confusion, and happily switched from one to another for the rest of the time I BF him.

I'm quite a sceptic when it comes to waiting 6 weeks before introducing a bottle. We did this with our daughter and she absolutely refused - maybe she would have refused even if we'd tried earlier, but I'm convinced it was because we left it too late!

[nicolemodesti]

Hmm yes I remember the days of constant feeding, or growth spurts, as I was told so well and my liitle one is now 17 months! My best memory was my, 'England Mum' as we call her as my folks live in Australia, popping by when my boy was about 4 weeks old with intentions of taking me out for lunch. When she arrived I answered the door with baby attached to breast and we happily sat around the house the house for the day as all he wanted to do was feed on the breast for an hour, off for half an hour, then back on again! Luckily we had lots of biscuits, cups of tea and TV. This day made it easier for other days when friends popped by and experienced the same! Perfect excuses for not worrying or feeling guilt ridden about what you should be trying to do in the way of chores!

On the issue of when to introduce a bottle for expressed milk, we tried at 3 weeks, with success, when my partner would give an 8pm bottle. We used the small medela bottles to see if he would take it then moved onto Advent bottles. Guess we were lucky as there was not any confusion with breast and teat and breastfed him until 10 months. Also helped us as I would be out tutoring for a couple of hours on weekends so there was a supply of breastmilk in a bottle for my partner to feed him. As others will tell you, works for some and not for others and do not be too hard on yourself whatever the outcome.

[ClareC]

Thx so much for all the advice, its so reassuring to know this is normal and will pass! Sounds like I need to just accept I can do pretty much nothing else and get comfortable with chocolate, DVD'S and books! Must admit it was satisfying that that the midwife was impressed by her weight gain on Saturday (pre grazing), can't wait to see what she adds after this increased appetite!

I just feel sorry for my partner, disturbed sleep, getting up early for work, a day at work and then coming home and cooking dinner for me!! I did manage to do the washing today but that was it!!

It seems like the grazing and the C Section combined means I really can do nothing other than care for Isla :-) How did they cope in Victorian times???

[trinity]

They had mothers and sisters I think.

[snowboarder]

Re housework/washing etc - the BEST thing I ever heard (poss on this forum?!?) was that you must feel that looking after bubs is equivalent to a full time job, your baby friends are your work colleagues, and the housework will get done by cleaner/at weekends as it did when you were working. I have to keep reminding myself that I did not give up my long studied for career to do housework, I did it to look after my baby.

Hubby says work is dead easy in comparison now and at least they get time to selves and to read etc on train.

Good luck ClareC - I remember this happening and being totally confused and trying to keep baby on a 3hr schedule - he just screamed and screamed and I had no idea what was wrong!

[Pickle]

Excellent advice snowboarder :)

The best money I spend every week is the money I pay a cleaner. When my daughter was born I used to buy meals from the lovely Mike (Bonyard), which I could simply pop in the oven to warm up and serve with a few microwaved veges. No sense beating yourself up about housework and domestic stuff, the most important things at the moment are yourself and your baby!

[The Nappy Lady]

I let the housework slip for a year, only doing what I could when I could, with hubby pitching in when it got so bad he couldn't stand it (not dirt but stuff all over the place etc). and you know what....when I got back onto a weekly cleaning schedule (by putting baby with a childminder for the day), the house went straight back to normal.....so nothing was lost. Frankly it makes me wonder why I bother so much about it.

Cleaning can wait, babies can't...and your kids wont look back and remember what an awful childhood they had because the house was a mess, but would remember if Mum was always busy cleaning and never had time to play/read a book/cook with them etc.

That's what I keep telling myself anyway!

Molly

[Pickle]

... I got the hoover out the other morning to clean up after some work being done on the house, only to have my 3 year old say "that's nice of Julia (cleaner) to share her toys with you isn't it Mummy" :-$

[The Nappy Lady]

pmsl....that is fantastic.

When O was a toddler she was terrified of the hoover - which showed how often she'd seen one as a baby!

[sillywoman]

Once we got someone to come & help when child 2 was a new baby. Nice lady asked me "where's your hoover?", Me: "Errrr . . .I don't know?". Oh the shame!

[ludoscotts]

hi clare, it all sounds normal like everyone has said, Re the bottle I would give it a go before 6 weeks. We gave E one at about 3 days old as I was so sore I physically couldnt do it and was so upset about it all hubby and mum insisted as E was starving but I was so worked up my milk wouldnt come etc. After a night off for me and some formula for her we got back to it the next day and all was fine, At 3 weeks old we had 2 nights out we had to go to so I expressed milk and my mum gave bottles. From then on Hubby would give her a bottle every couple of days and there was never any problems. Dont know how she would have taken a bottle from me at that stage as we never tried but she would happily take a bottle from anyone else and It meant I got a nice relax in the bath etc while she was being fed. So def worth trying from 3 weeks onwards as E had bottles expressed and formula by 3 weeks and feeding was all fine.

[Goodliz]

Hi ClareC, Sounds really normal. As mentioned before, get some DVDs/ good telly watching and some books from the library so you can relax during these frequent feeding sessions. Their tummies are tiny so cannot hold much. The feeds space out more after a couple of months.

[newcomer]

I am so glad I found this post - 3 week old DS wants to feed ALL the time during the day. Not sure it's a growth spurt as it's been like this for a week, plus he seems to manage to go for 2.5 hours during the night without feeding. Nice to know it's normal (although exhausting ...)

[Fuschia]

There are two things going on with this constant feeding/growth spurts I think

The first is that the amount you feed at first has a direct effect on your breasts and how they respond to the milk hormone, prolactin http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/milkproduction.html The more you feed, the better your breasts become at milk production!

Secondly, if you imagine a formula feeding mum starting off with a 4oz bottle then noticing the bottles are being drained and switching to a bigger bottle, ofering 5oz at every feed. How does your body know your bf baby has reached that point? Because you let her feed as much as she wants... she will do this constant feeding when she hits a growth spurt, it's like waving a little flag saying "Make more milk, please!" Because if you think what a tiny amount they take at first (when I syringe fed one of my twins, for the first 2 weeks she took less than an ounce per feed) if your body went straight into making 4,5,6oz at a time, frm day one, boy would you be engorged and getting mastitis!!!

Nature is very clever... if you let her have her way!

Just when our post birth bodies need to take it easy for a few weeks nature dictates we should sit in front of the TV with our tits out eating chocolate. Perfect!

[apenn]

I look back so fondly of those early days of just sitting around breastfeeding all day. I didn't have any DVD box sets, but luckily there was 3 hrs of Star Trek on every day on Virgin 1. Sweet times!

-A