Help!!!

[Breeelizabeth]

my daughter spent the first week in the NICU and I wasn’t able to breastfeed for the first four days. I expressed every three hours and managed to feed her exclusively with breastmilk top ups. Once she was able to feed she would have a breastfeed followed by a top up of EBM.
She’s now two weeks and I’m struggling. I’m trying to feed on demand. At first when we came home her weight gains were good then they dropped off to roughly 20g in 2 days. The nurses and paediatrician are happy because she had such a rough start to life but I can’t help draw comparisons to when I was breastfeeding my son. He started off by gaining great weight, then it dropped and eventually he became dehydrated and failure to thrive despite having all the right amounts of wet and dirty nappies and was settled. As a result my milk supply dropped completely and I had to stop breastfeeding.

My daughter is incredibly sleepy due to jaundice and as a late prem is still quite small. Her latch is pretty shallow but causes me no pain/no cracked nipples etc. I’ve been googling like crazy to find a way to get a deeper latch but I can never get her to open her mouth wider. She has no ties or anything like that and is always pulling off the breast. She has plenty of wet and dirty nappies and I hear her swallow a lot of milk . I feel like my supply is starting to drop (the amounts that I pump are gradually getting lower)

The paediatrician wants me to hold off on reintroducing EBM top-ups and to be honest I’m a little afraid of causing a bottle preference.

Could anyone please suggest what I can do to get our latch better, tips to get baby to open wider and any suggestions on keeping her awake!! I’m already stripping her down to nappy at every feed to keep her awake.

Thanks ladies!

 

[pandn]

What you could do is get a baby scale so you know exactly how much your daughter is getting. If she is drinking the right amounts then it might be an allergy she has in your milk and not digesting it properly. If she isn’t getting enough then it might be the latch. I don’t have any suggestions for that. Both my sons didn’t have deep latches but I was able to bf my first for 2 years and still bf current Bub.

To try keep her awake you could change her nappy/diaper when you swap sides. I used to also tickle my sons feet. My first was sleepy as well due to jaundice and I had to do top ups with ebm. The top ups helped him to gain weight until all the bilirubin was gone. After that I didn’t need to try keep him awake anymore as he wasn’t as sleepy.
What I would do is feed, change nappy, feed other side, partner topped up with 60 ml while I pumped( I tried to get 60ml+ as well) to keep up with my supply. He gained weight VERY quickly after that.
Hope things get easier for you

 

[noon_child]

Do you have any support groups where you are? It can be really helpful to see healthy babies thriving on different amounts of weight gain and watch other people feed to see what an actively drinking baby looks like. It also gives you a safe place to cry, de-stress etc.