Needed formula on day 5

[vs011]

I am aiming to primarly bf but my newborn is only 5 days old and her appetite has grown from every 3 hr bf to every 1.5-2hrs. I simply cant keep up with her hunger. Tonight, on her scheduled bf feed, she refused to take my nipple for the first time. I've been bf'ing since leaving the hospital so I dont understand. She then continued to cry and scream her head off to thr point where I was terrified she will lose her voice and her face red. I gave in and prepared a 4fl oz of Enfamil. I knew she was hungry from her sucking her fingers. I gave her the formula and she drank the whole thing and slept soundly.

Anyone run into this situation? I'm disappointed I had to do this but she refused bf. I will continue bf again but I'm wondering if this resonates with anyone here & what would you have done?

 

[Rachel89]

I am not an expert on breastfeeding, but babies do go through growth spurt. There is a book/chart on the time frames, wherein it is normal for them fuss and even eat their fingers etc. And them clusterfeeding (constantly for hours even!) can make mom (especially since nowadays the breastfeeding knowledge hasn't been passed down) is normal and is baby giving mom's body the indication to make more milk.

I don;t know how you reacted to your babies clusterfeeding, did you continue offering? Are you stressed?

A breastfeed baby should have about 1-1.5 oz per hour and not more, and look into paced feeding, or else baby could get used to the bottle and refuse the breast altogether especially at this young age. Also there is a chart which shows how much babies get at which stage, their tummies are still very small.

 

[noon_child]

Sounds very normal - although insanely frustrating. It can be a case of just getting too hungry and not knowing what to do with themselves. I always missed my LO's feeding cues because I never learnt them as during the early days I HAD to feed her at least every 2hours because of her low weight, so when I was able to do demand feeding because her weight went up I didn't pick up on them and she was always screaming by the time we were in position to feed. Some babies are very subltle with their cues, some don't cue till really hungry and some due hunger cues when actually they have gas or are tired!!!!!

I have since learned that a crying baby cannot get any kind of decent latch at the breast and will often pull off if they were latched while crying. If a baby gets hysterical there is no point trying to latch them - talk to them continuously in calming tones, shift them in to a non-breastfeeding pose (like over shoulder etc.) or give them something like your finger to suck on for a minute or two, while you express some breastmilk. A syringe can be useful to the dropper milk in to LO's mouth (rather than use a bottle which is harder to regulate) or you can even spoonfeed them milk (as long as you are not tipping it straight in the back of their throat - Google the best techniques). Once calmed down by whatever worked, you can try to latch them again. If you give a full feed from a bottle, your breasts will not receive the signal to keep making milk and this will lead to LO being more frustrated at the breast. At 5 days old your LOs stomach is only somewhere between 25-40ml and is only just starting to be able to stretch, so don't worry too much about needing loads of bottles of expressed milk - a little goes a long way.

 

[Tasha]

At day five I was very engorged and it was so difficult for him to latch. I had to express a little (by hand) to reduce the pressure around the nipple so he could latch. Could that of been the issue?