Newborn grandson eats eats eats

I am all for breastfeeding and fed all of mine. I was shocked to see a great nephew, about a month or six weeks old. He looked like a wizened old man, his skin was loose looking and he was lethargic. Apparently DN's doctor had suggested the baby should be bottle fed but my niece kept breast feeding. I couldn't get the baby out of my head and I had to go back to see my DN the next day and suggest she take the baby and see a HV. The baby had hardly put on any weight, I can still picture him lying there and he is eleven now. He was put straight on the bottle. What I gathered was my niece just wasn't feeding him enough and never fed him through the night.

Then a few years ago I heard DD1's neighbour's baby was only allowed to be breastfed every four hours, the mother would not feed him before the four hours were up. You would think in this day and age with all the information available people would get that breast fed babies need to be fed more than every four hours, especially newborns. Seems that some people are still in the 1950s when lots of babies were on formula and fed every four hours.

I had a friend say to me didn't my baby realise feeding is every four hours. DH piped up that our baby couldn't tell the time yet!

Get the breast feeding nurse in to look at proceedings, my DD was told that baby had not latched on properly, she introduced nipple shields and bingo, babies feeding times lengthened and he slept between feeds rather than just dozing on the brest. Good luck!

Not being harsh but let her get on with it, it is her life her choice. All new mum's are exhausted but in the "old days" we understood routine was what was needed. These days there is no such thing as routine, babies and children call the shots. Your DD will muddle through her on way just like we did.

grannypiper Her daughter has chronic fatigue syndrome... not just tired new mum issues.

Louisa62 Sat 25-Mar-17 21:54:11
Thanks Ana. I am standing well back so no concerns there. My daughter has chronic fatigue syndrome which doesn't help her.

Yes reading through the messages this is the first 1 I have come accross that is taking into account the CFS: I also have Constant Fatigue Syndrome and it is no laughing matter. People seem to think it must be great to be constantly able to sleep. It doesn't work like that I know. Continually feeling like you haven't slept for days and not getting restful sleep is not good for your well being.

As others have suggested helping out with practical matters is the way forward. Also I have reflexology which is foot massage done at a spa once a month. It is not a cure all however it does help me, with the symptoms which aren't just the constant tiredness.

Perhaps you could suggest that to your daughter and your son in law in a way that could help her well being. Cost is around £35 a session which I have 4 weekly.

I suppose it depends on the baby Faye; DS would sleep on for five hours or more and I had to wake him for a feed from when he was a few days old; he slept from 11 pm until 6 or 7 am as soon as we came out of the maternity home. I was worried he wasn't getting enough but he put on weight very steadily at about 8-10 ozs a week.

Despite all the advantages of breastfeeding and the pressure put on new mums to breastfeed, I would seriously think about giving a hungry baby a top-up formula at night at least to enable a new mother with health problems to recuperate. Contrary to some beliefs, it does not stop babies breastfeeding.
It is no good your DD making herself worse.

The baby doesn't sound hungry if he's put on 3lb in two weeks. Frequent feeds may simply be his feeding routine. Rather than use formula, maybe try expressing some breastmilk so the father can give a bottle while the mother gets some extra sleep.

My GS was 9lb 4 oz at birth and has put on 3lbs in ten days

I can hardly believe that as babies generally lose weight during the first week - 12lbs 4ozs at ten days old is astonishing.

A 7-10% loss is considered normal for breastfed babies. Most babies should regain this lost weight by days 10-14 of life.

The midwife thought that the 8-10ozs DS put on each week was an excellent amount.

although we have one who was about 12 lbs at two weeks but he started life at nearly 11 lbs

Well, the baby is 15days old and has put on 3lb in ten days so presumably he lost a bit of weight in the first five days and has made up for it since?

Not all babies lose weight and some go on to gain at a terrific rate. Friends of mine have had babies that have been very roly-poly indeed despite being totally breastfed. Though that's not anything I've ever had to deal with, sadly!

Louisa I missed that your DD has CFS. You are doing the best thing by helping out as much as you can.

Jalima mine slept well too, though DD2 didn't sleep through the night until she was 3, my older two were 6 and 8 weeks. I think this baby wasn't fed enough in the day either. He didn't even look like he wanted to be fed. He was barely putting on any weight each week.

I'm assuming that the mother knows about her condition. That she is a competent adult and that she has decided to continue breastfeeding. Therefore it could be extremely risky for OP to be pushing anything. I get very irritated by people constantly suggesting I should formula feed. I fed my son till 15 months and I'm aiming for 2 years with my daughter. People who suggest formula get swiftly and firmly told its none of their business.

The DD were not such good eaters and sleepers as DS Faye
And I worried about one DD because she never put much weight on and was always tiny, now tall and slender (unlike her mother).

Well, yes Bibbity - you left out the word 'nicely' btw! but many of us have experience of the pros and cons of breastfeeding having fed our own (one for well over a year) or had to give up and use formula at some point for various reasons and the OP asked for advice about a DD who has chronic fatigue syndrome so a problem with an added dimension. She is concerned about her daughter.

However, there is so much more help available now than 40 or so years ago.

The problem with giving a bottle of formula isn't so much the fact that it is formula or out of a bottle (thoughI understand that modern bottle teats mimic breastfeeding better than the ones with great big holes that were available in our day. It's the fact that missing out a feed may lead to the mother's milk supply dwindling as it is the action of the baby feeding that stimulates the milk supply.

Hiring a breast pump and expressing milk for a respite bottle is a much more sensible idea.

Expressing is also exhausting though isn't it? DD used to feed DGS then sit up in bed with the breast pump and if she was lucky there might be a few minutes maybe an hour before DGS woke for the next feed which was not always long for the milk supply to "refill"
I think that in fact she was too exhausted to produce enough milk and his fretfulness/ colic/ tongue tie/underweight plus the fact that he was not a "focused" feeder all combined to make the first month's very fraught.
Still, she survived and so did he!

Phew I feel exhausted all over again just reading this. The top and bottom is that babies MUST be fed and you can only judge how effective that is by weight gain. If a bottle is needed occasionally so be it. And the minute baby stops feeding mother needs to sleep too no mater what time of day or night. So mother needs to be mothered at this time and just concentrate on feeding (anyone can do nappies!) as well as feeding and drinking herself. Our younger DD has a chronic health problem-didn't think she would ever be able to have a baby at all cos of the powerful drugs she has to take-but she bravely stopped her meds in order to conceive. After only a couple of weeks after breast feeding so well, her rheumatoid arthritis came back with a vengeance, so it had to be bottle feeding from then on and baby thrived just the same. Hang I in there, you're doing so well.

Dd and I both breastfed our babies and both read up on the topic in whatever sources were available at the time (more for her, of course, with the Internet). While I understand that some women struggle with BF (I did at first), I also believe that sometimes it's due to lack of information, lack of support from family and friends, or pressure by well-meaning people to introduce formula too soon.

Unfortunately, as I understand it, the more the new mum relies on a bottle, the less her milk supply builds up = failure. Apparently, a supplementary bottle has worked out in some cases, according to posts here. But if all is going well, I wouldn't suggest it as yet, Op.

By "going well," of course, I mean, as others have said, if baby continues to gain weight ok, and also if he's wetting enough nappies (is the rule still 6 a day?. Also, as long as dd's CFS doesn't appear to be getting worse (but see that article I linked earlier). If there are any serious problems, then, of course, dd may have to supplement with or switch to a bottle - the main thing is that baby gets fed - but so far, so good, it seems, even though I understand you're worried.

Oh, of course, if dd would just prefer to switch to formula, then fine. There shouldn't be any pressure either way, imo.

This too shall pass.

Not all babies come with a handbook of instructions! Some wake all through the night, some fret and some get colic at 2 am. Others sleep for four hours in between feeds and some - just occasionally - sleep all through the night from a week or so.

Express during the day. He's snacking. Snacking will cause a long term sleepless rut. He needs longer feeds to fill his tummy. My son was premature by many weeks and so he was in NICU for a long while. They told me never to start "feeding on demand"... every 3 hrs. So I fed him every 3 hrs and gave the dummy in between. He drank full feeds (20-30 mins of full feeding) and never had any issues with my prem baby.

Breast feeding on demand is the only way to go. It builds up the right supply and it's my belief that the first three, in fact six weeks are best spent if the mother is sleeping between feeds and eating well. When many of our babies were born almost 50 years ago, it was common to have five days in hospital after the baby arrived. All your meals were provided, the babies were often whisked off to the nursery over night so the new mum could sleep. I wouldn't want to return to those days, which contributed massively to me "failing" as a first time breast feeding mother. I was told the baby should have a bottle overnight as "mother needs to sleep" and that when I went home, I should feed my baby every four hours, never more frequently. I'm not a fan of expressing, none of my three were either, though they all tried it "so dad can do a feed". I'd use formula in extremis or get dad to do everything else so mum just feeds, eats and sleeps. Things will soon settle into a reasonable routine (ish). At 15 days, your daughter is likely to be exhausted. Do some cooking, make some casseroles, pies, salads etc, pick up the washing, do it and take it back. Practical help is welcome in my experience. I do hope things get easier
By the time baby 2 and 3 arrived, I'd read a lot and talked to other breast feeding mothers and I fed on demand, ate nutritional meals (frequently), drank gallons of water and slept a lot in those early weeks.
CFS is awful and must make things more complicated.

"Snacking" does not cause a long term sleepless rut, it just doesn't

Well, they took my baby away after she arrived so that I could have 'a good night's sleep' and I didn't sleep a wink all night because I thought there was something really wrong with her.
And a nasty nursing sister did nothing whatsoever to help us to start breastfeeding. Back home after 24 hours thank goodness.