Baby is too sleepy

[Ninagrrl]

This is with bottle feeding as well as breast but is worse with breast feeding. Latching issues, I get that, I am frustrated with that and the pain of breast feeding but if those were the only problems I wouldn't contemplate just quitting breast feeding all together and be done with it. It still wouldn't solve my current issue but at least then I wouldn't have the added pain and discomfort.

My daughter just doesn't want to wake up to eat... ever. She ends up going 4 - 5 hours between feeds and then cluster feeds for 2 - 3 hours due to falling asleep a quarter way through her feeding. Then I put her down and 10 - 30 mins later she wants to eat again. Then I have the latching problems because she's fairly lazy but if she stayed on the nipple I wouldn't be spending most of my time trying to get the child to latch, I'd only have to work on it for a few minutes every couple of hours for feeding.

I've been told to let her get a little hungry by family members but my daughter is a week + 2 days old and this is our first day home after a week long NICU stay where low blood sugar was an issue. I don't know if it's rational or not but I'm so afraid of hurting her if I don't let her eat enough just because I want to breast feed her.

Like I said, I could deal with the latch issues and the pain as I know this is normal and will eventually work itself out, but what do I do with a baby that falls asleep before she's even 5 mins into a feeding and just falls off the nipple? I know this will likely go away too, I'm just afraid I'll give up before I can get to this point and I don't want to give up. I really want this. I want the bonding experience as well as I believe that breast feeding is the best. So far she is only on breast milk but I sometimes get so frustrated that I give her a bottle with pumped milk.

I've tried undressing her so she's a bit cold, it helps to get her awake initially but she still doesn't stay awake and falls asleep as soon as she has my body warmth.

Sorry this is so long... I'm just really tired and frustrated.

 

[rachelleigh]

Hi! Congratulations on your little girl!!

We had the same issue with our little guy sleeping a ton those first couple weeks and it was so stressful. Our lactation consultants and pediatrician told us to not let him go longer than 2-3 hours and wake him to feed if we need to. Otherwise he was too tired and did a poor job eating, would keep dozing off and the cycle continued... We also had major latch problems which turned out to be from a myriad of reasons-- posterior tongue tie which got snipped, asymmetry of the jaw and an abnormal sucking reflex (we will start seeing a feeding specialist/occupational therapist and osteopath for that). It has been a challenge to breastfeed from day 1 and I'm so passionate about it and want it to work so badly. After trying many different feeding techniques in the early days (SNS, cup feeding, finger feeding, syringe) to get his weight up, we have eventually needed to supplement with bottles of breast milk and I pump every time he eats, 8-10x a day. Pumping right now, actually! So I guess what I'm saying is don't feel bad if you go to a bottle every once in a while. Do what you need to do to feed your LO and keep YOU sane.

A few of the things I was told to do to keep him awake... tickle/gently poke him, rub his feet, burp him often, change his diaper, use a cool washcloth... But honestly the more often you feed her I bet the more energy she will have to stay awake while feeding. I hope things get easier for you! This whole breastfeeding thing is crazy but I think if we stick with it, it will get easier and will be so rewarding.

 

[Perplexed]

Congrats on your little girl

Not sure if I can offer any advice other than it seems my LO is also doing the same thing. With cluster feeding it gets so easy to doubt ourselves and wonder if our babies are getting enough. But my aunt who used to combi-feed her LO told me that her girl also cluster fed with formula and not just breast milk.

Going to stalk and see what others say. BF'ing for me is a much bigger ordeal than the birth itself in some ways!

 

[Ninagrrl]

Believe it or not, I had a repeat section with this one (a blessing in disguise after having my heart set on a VBAC as we found out she had a knot in her cord), and since I had so much nerve damage with the first one, this c-section barely hurt for recovery. My pain never went past a 3 on the pain scale unless I forgot my meds and then it was only about a 5. I was walking in less than 24 hours without the need of a wheelchair and mild discomfort.

To say that BFing has been more horrible and painful than my c-section is an understatement. I can deal with the pain, really, it's more the frustration from the latching issue and how time consuming the feeds are. I'm tired and just want sleep. That's why I resorted to the bottle. She was bottle fed in the NICU and had no problems with guided latching with lactation consultant but I have a hard time telling an improper latch right now unless it actually hurts. I hate having to use a nipple shield because that makes it easier to have an improper latch plus the nipple shield falls off or isn't centered. Sometimes even her latch with nipple shield doesn't pull me out and then milk doesn't come down so she doesn't get the insentive to stay latched and just drops off and the screaming starts. She works herself up so much sometimes that I have to let her calm down before starting again.

 

[Kelskiii]

Same here my dd is very lazy during the day & difficult to latch on when tired. I've started to let her tell me when she's hungry as she screams & latches on straight away & has a good feed. Generally waking after 4hrs sometimes 5hrs - I wake her if close to 5hrs.

We do top up with one formula bottle at night as no matter how much I feed her throughout the night she is never satisfied ... I suspect i'm not giving her enough milk at the moment & hoping this will change soon.

At the moment we have a lot of visitors & its driving me mad when they rock her to sleep when she cries, i'm like give my baby back she needs to feed when she cries as she latches on best then. Me & DH have had a talk today, no matter whos got hold of her even if they've just got her, they give her to me to feed.

The things that do work for dd to wake up is taking her clothes off & putting a wet flannel on her belly, she has to be hungry to wake though.

 

[BunnyN]

I cant advise on the latch problems but honestly the cluster feeding and sleeping at the breast sound fairly normal for a newborn.

 

[Ninagrrl]

So I had 2 successes earlier. A 15 min feed and a 12 min feed. Her latch wasn't perfect but was better and at least didn't hurt me. Still need to work on that. They were 2 - 3 hours apart and she seems to latch better if the feeds are closer together, less frustrated probably because she's not as hungry. I took her down to a short sleeve onsie and her socks for 20 mins before feed, changed her diaper. I also haven't been tucking her in so close to my body so she doesn't get as much of my warmth. She still seemed a little hungry about a half hour after the 12 min feed but I didn't top off with bottle and the next feeding OH fed her a 60 ml bottle so I could get some sleep. So far not a bad day considering I was losing all hope last night.

 

[Ninagrrl]

Wanted to update and say that skin to skin helped with sleepiness. I did football hold with nursing pillow so that I didn't hold her to my side which kept her a little cold and alert for longer. I got 10 good minutes on first side and 8 lazy minutes on the second side. With the latching problem she was opening her mouth too wide and not latching so I stuck my finger in her mouth and she latched for a couple seconds before I popped her on and she not only latched instantly but it was a good latch as well. Thought this might help anyone having similar problems.

 

[rachelleigh]

Wanted to update and say that skin to skin helped with sleepiness. I did football hold with nursing pillow so that I didn't hold her to my side which kept her a little cold and alert for longer. I got 10 good minutes on first side and 8 lazy minutes on the second side. With the latching problem she was opening her mouth too wide and not latching so I stuck my finger in her mouth and she latched for a couple seconds before I popped her on and she not only latched instantly but it was a good latch as well. Thought this might help anyone having similar problems.

So glad to hear it's getting better! I'm going to try that trick, thanks for the tip!

 

[Girly922]

My DD was very sleepy the first week and we struggled to BF. I was told not to let her go longer than 2 hours between feeds, as at that age she wouldn't wake when she got hungry and would just be harder to rouse. So I woke her to feed, and would start by cup feeding a small amount to wake her up so she would latch better. As I was hand expressing a small amount before every feed, it meant she didn't have to wait as long for my flow to start so didn't have time to fall back to sleep.

 

[Ninagrrl]

If I wake her every hour and a half to 2 hours like everyone tells me to I would LITERALLY never sleep. It takes an HOUR just to feed her for 10 mins between dressing and undressing, diaper change, breast feeding, pumping and then cleaning everything up I am up usually an hour an a half and then it takes me a half hour to fall back asleep. I'm on a 3 hour rotation and only getting 1 hour at a time. I think my lack of sleep isn't helping and my OH is an unsupportive ass. He doesn't care if there are health benefits to BFing or that I actually WANT to have this bonding experience. When I get frustrated he tells me to quit doing it if its too hard and switch to formula.

I have no problem feeding breast milk to my baby by bottle. I know with some it causes nipple confusion but that isn't an issue. Actually, she has a harder time taking a bottle from me and always has. Other people, she takes a bottle fine, but me she won't latch well and opens up too wide. It's always been this way. I didn't have an option as my daughter was in the NICU with a central line that was low lie (5cm in through her umbilical cord) so I couldn't pick her up. She was bottle fed formula until my milk came in and then we switched to bottle feeding my milk that had been fortified from a 20 calorie diet to a 24 calorie diet.

At this point it's looking like I might just quit and mostly because everything about this is too overwhelming if you don't have support and have a 4 year old special needs child who is going through his terrible twos.