4 week old falling asleep on breast then crying

[Juliaandolive]

My 4 week old daughter is having a continuous cycle of feeding, falling asleep at the breast so I take her off, as soon as she wakes she grizzles and cries and starts rooting again. I start feeding again and the same happens to the point where I have no concept of how many feeds she is having and also if she is just needing to comfort suck or is actually hungry. This is becoming really tiring and I also end up getting fed up of feeding, which makes it a negative experience rather than a positive one.

Any advice and observations welcome. Is this normal? What can I do to read my daughter's signals better?

Thanks
Julia

[Erin M]

There's some info here: Breastfeeding and EASY in the first few weeks

Also, I should mention that it sounds pretty normal.  What I'd do with mine when they were super sleepy is try everything I could so I know they were getting decent feeds -- so often this meant pretty much undressing them before I started feeding them -- and changing their diapers mid-feed, just whatever I could in order to keep them awake and nursing.  If you feel for it, you should be able to tell the difference between nursing for food and comfort sucking -- I've heard comfort sucking described as kind of a "fluttering" sensation, which was very accurate for me.  So, once they went to comfort sucking, I'd take them off.  If you feel like she's gotten a decent feed in and she's rooting around an hour later, she's probably just tired and looking for some help falling asleep. 

[bexandlucy]

It could be perfectly normal, newborns do like to feed a lot! Put your feet up and take it as a chance to relax, don't worry it doesn't last very long.

But it could be an indicator of tongue tie, how is her weight, latch etc? Do you get any nipple pain? Always worth bearing this in mind.