Question about breastfeeding and sleeping

P

premama

Registered User
Hi,

I have a 3.5 week old baby. He was originally on a 3 hour feeding schedule and my routine was to feed him on one breast (on which he usually fell asleep), change his diaper (which usually woke him up) and feed him on the other breast.

However recently, he has been needing to be fed every 1 or 2 hours. I try to get him to feed on both breasts but he refuses to wake up and drink from the 2nd breast. I've tried everything to wake him up - changing his diaper, burping him, tickling his feet, removing his blanket, etc.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so, how did you deal with it? As he usually falls asleep after one breast, he is probably not full and therefore wakes up more frequently.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks!
 
How long has he been feeding more frequently? If it has just been a couple of days, it`s probably a growth spurt and will go back to normal soon(they are EXHAUSTING).
I used to try to feed my baby like your - one breast, diaper, other breast, which was usually pretty hard. I came to accept that, at the time, he was just a one-breast man, and I stopped trying to make him drink from other other side.
 
3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months... those are the typical growth spurt times... sounds like that's what he's going through.

just a word of warning, though.... just when you think you've got a routine worked out, the baby will go and change it. personally, i think it best to "go with the flow" than to try to fight it.

good luck and congratulations!
 
As others have said it is very common for babies to ask to feed a lot, especially around three weeks old.

It doesn't really matter to your baby if he has a feed of 30 minutes once every three hours or if he drinks for 10 minutes once every hour. The important thing is that he is getting enough milk. The only way to tell this is that he is having at least 6 wet nappies every 24 hours, and is gaining weight (an average of 170 grams or 6oz every week).

It is often easier and the mother gets more sleep to let the baby decide when and how long he wants to feed. If he wants quick feeds and then goes back to sleep - let him. Usually it is too much effort to get him to feed for an extra ten minutes and takes you about thirty or forty minutes! Better that you sleep again and wake up in an hour and a half and have another quick feed.

There is an article in describing normal infant feeding patterns in LLL Asia's newsletter, Close to the Heart, called Chocolate Cake and Chinese Banquets: Understanding your baby?s feeding patterns. I have attached it for you.

Best wishes,
SARAH
 

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