Help With Breasfeeding Sleepy 2 week old!?

Question

I have a 2 1/2 week old baby who falls asleep within a minute or 2 after latching on and stops sucking. I have tried the cheek/chin stroking, rubbing his head, stimulating vigorous backrubbing, feet tickling and stripping him down to a diaper when nursing. These will get him to suck a few times, then back to sleep. He lost just over 10% of his body weight in the hospital, and at 2 weeks was 2 oz shy of hitting his birthweight so the doc has me supplimenting with a bottle after each feeding, but I'd rather correct the issue with sucking. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I wouldn't supplement with a bottle personally... but that is your choice of course. I would go with just breast milk... OK sorry, lol. just ranting. To answer your question, have you tried a cool cloth on her body and forehead. My daughter did this too, but it passes. It is only the first while that they do this

Answer 2

My son went through the same thing. He was that way for 3 weeks and eventually stopped. I was told it was just a phase. Then later on, I supplimented with a bottle and he decided he liked that better so be careful if you plan on continuing to breastfeed. Maybe try feeding him as soon as he wakes even if he's not hungry.

Answer 3

Yeah, I guess newborns are just very sleepy little people. My son did this too, but he was greedy enough to just go ahead and eat. If the rocking and nudging under the chin don't work try breaking the latch and see if he doesn't wake up to latch back on. This worked for my little greedy greedy gumdrop!

Answer 4

Boys are lazier than girls. Besides doing all the think you have tried, which I did, I used to shake my nipple while in my daughter's mouth and then she would start sucking again. Also, try walking around and different holds while breastfeeding. The football hold was the best for me where the baby is held with one arm sort of under your arm and his head is in your hand. You can contact the La Leche League for more advice. Good luck!

Answer 5

When I had my daughter, a nurse at the hospital told me to wipe her face with a wet washcloth when that happens. It seemed excessive to me, but in your case it sounds necessary. You can do it as many times as you have to until the feeding is done or he stays awake on his own.

Good luck!

Answer 6

Use breast compressions during the feed to make the milk come out faster.

Also nurse more often. Wake him to nurse every hour during the day. And get rid of the bottle TODAY! That's the worst thing you can do for a lazy breastfeeder; if you have to offer supplements 1) they should be breastmilk and 2) they should be from a cup (not sippy cup), spoon, or syringe.

Also at 2 weeks your baby's stomach shouldn't be much bigger than 2oz. That's a lot of extra milk to be giving a baby.

And get help from a lactation consultant, I guarantee you that the only breastfeeding information your doctor has read was directly from a formula company.

La Leche League- FREE in person breastfeeding support and meetings
International: http://www.llli.org/webindex.html
USA: 1-877-4-LALECHE

Alternative Feeding Methods
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/alternative-feeding.html

How to Know a Health Professional
is not Supportive of Breastfeeding
http://www.kellymom.com/newman/18MD_unsupportive.html

Hunger Cues - When do I feed baby?
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/start/basics/hunger-cues.html

Is Baby Getting Enough Milk?
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/enough-milk.html

How might I increase baby's weight gain?
http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/growth/weight-gain_increase.html

How much expressed milk will my baby need?
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/milkcalc.html


http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detsleepthrough.html
Human children are designed (whether you believe by millions of years of evolution, or by God, it doesn't matter) -- to nurse *very* frequently, based on the composition of the milk of the species, the fact that all higher primates (Primates are the zoological Order to which humans belong, higher primates include monkeys and apes) keep their offspring in the mother's arms or on her back for several years, the size of the young child's stomach, the rapidity with which breast milk is digested, the need for an almost constant source of nutrients to grow that huge brain (in humans, especially), and so on. By very frequently, I mean 3-4 times per hour, for a few minutes each time. The way in which some young infants are fed in our culture -- trying to get them to shift to a 3-4 hour schedule, with feedings of 15-20 minutes at a time, goes against our basic physiology. But humans are very adaptable, and some mothers will be able to make sufficient milk with this very infrequent stimulation and draining of the breasts, and some children will be able to adapt to large meals spaced far apart. Unfortunately, some mothers don't make enough milk with this little nursing, and some babies can't adjust, and so are fussy, cry a lot, seem to want to nurse "before it is time" and fail to grow and thrive. Of course, usually the mother's body is blamed -- "You can't make enough milk" -- rather than the culturally-imposed expectation that feeding every 3-4 hours should be sufficient, and the mother begins supplementing with formula, which leads to a steady spiral downward to complete weaning from the breast.


http://www.todaysparent.com/article.jsp?content=1266685
Lactation consultant Diane Wiessinger of Ithaca, New York, agrees. “I once led a meeting where I told the mothers — all experienced breastfeeding mothers — that we were going to write the real baby book, one that told new mothers what they needed to know,” she recalls. “One woman said, ‘New mothers need to know that newborns will nurse every hour.’ Another mother spoke up and said, ‘Yeah, and the feedings will last an hour.’ Everyone laughed, and I think that laughter meant that this is a common experience. Babies don’t really nurse all the time, but it can sure feel that way — especially at first.”

[...]

Anthropologist Kathy Dettwyler from Texas A&M University says that nursing a lot is typical of babies around the world. She cites a study done in 2000 that looked at the feeding behaviour of infants aged three to four months in three different communities: families from Washington, DC, the Ba’Aka hunter-gatherers and the Ngandu farmers, both of the Central African Republic. They found that the Ba’Aka babies nursed 4.02 times per hour, the Ngandu babies nursed 2.01 times per hour and the American babies nursed 1.6 times per hour. Certainly the American babies nursed less often than the two African groups, but they nursed more frequently than many new parents expect.

http://breastfeed.com/resources/articles/expectation.htm
However, inside, Baby is dealing with an unnatural food that is very hard to digest and takes a very long time to move out of his stomach. In any case, many new mothers have come to accept that this is the way their own baby will behave. Not so with breast milk.

Breast milk is natural and digests very quickly – usually within two hours. Therefore, breastfed babies eat often. In the early weeks, they may eat eight to 20 times a day – or more. It depends.

As a lactation consultant, I frequently hear moms say, "Well I tried to breastfeed my first child but they always wanted to eat, and my milk could never fill them up like formula did. They were always hungry." Get it? The formula makes them feel very full, but is that good for them? Not really. Formula is deficient in all immunological properties.

I then ask the mothers, "Before you changed to formula, was your baby gaining weight well and having plenty of wet diapers and bowel movements?"

"Oh, yes," they say. "That was going well." I have come to understand that the reason these moms quit is not that their baby is not growing well or that they did not have enough milk, but because they didn't want to feed as often as the baby needed to eat and felt that by switching to an artificial food, the baby would be "happier" and "more content." Their baby would behave more like TV babies. Their perception was that something was wrong because their babies ate often. Perhaps that feeling was reinforced by "helpful" friends or family members.




So I Nursed Him Every 45 Minutes
http://www.llli.org//NB/Law45com.html


"He Can't Be Hungry. He Just Ate!"
http://www.wiessinger.baka.com/bfing/howworks/hungry.html

Answer 7

DO NOT supplement!!! That is going to seriously mess with your supply! Contact LLL for advice.