Should i abandon breast feeding?

[mariamac]

My 10 week old boy is just getting on EASY and after taking notes for a while I have realized that what I thought was a sleep issue might be a eating issue and I really hope I can get some advice. He has been breastfeed from day one. But at the moment he is having really short feeds (in the range of 3 min). He is also really bad ad staying on the breast. He will suck three times and then let go and he can do that a lot. The only time he ever just eats and stays on the breast is at his dreamfeed when he is asleep. I have tried to give him a bottle of formula after he stops showing interest in the breast and he easily eats 50 ml more and I can also often pump 50-70 ml of milk after he no longer wants to eat. So I do have more milk he just doesn't want to eat more from the breast. I often feels like its a fight between him and me whether he should eat more. Sometimes he can go the 3 h between feeds on a short meal and other times he is hungry again after 2 h. Also he doesn't sleep more than a maximum of 5 h in one stretch at night and often shorter than that. Could this be because my milk doesn't have sufficient nutrients? I have lost a lot of weight after I gave birth, weight I didn't gain during the pregnancy so I have been thinking that maybe he is not getting enough calories. We have tried to give him a bottle of formula and he easily takes 130 ml in almost one go with out all the stopping that he does when on the breast. It also often seems like he doesn't like to have things in front of his face so when I put him on the breast he would rather look every where else. I have tried so shield him when eating, breastfeeding in a dark room and different positions when breastfeeding, none of which was more successful than just putting him on the breast. Should I perhaps abandon the breastfeeding and use formula in stead? I really hope I can get some good advice since it is getting really frustrating.

[Khalam's Mama]

It is worth thinking about if he is growing well enough and if he has enough wet nappies etc. Some babies are just quick eaters. Mine never spent more than 5 mins for a feed at that age and was growing great and we fed until2yo. Are you offering the other breast at all. We needed to start doing double sided feeds at this time.. And they certainly do get distracted around now.
Did he any issues with latch or reflux etc?_
If you want to encourage the breast feeding I would stop topping him up with formula because he might get lazy for the breast as a bottle is easier and your milk supply will likely suffer.

[mariamac]

Thank you for the reply.
He has never had any problems latching on the breast and I don't think he has problems with reflux, it is very rare that any milk comes back up.
It is only the last couple of days that we have tried to top him op with formula as we realized that mayby he was not eating enough when he was spending so little time sucking and also bobbing on and off the breast most of the time, so I don't think it is because he is lazy because he has never been used to getting milk from a bottle.
I have tried to offer the other breast but it is pretty much the same story and besides when he seems to be finished I can easily pump an extra 50-70 ml from the breast so I don't think it is because I don't have enough milk in one breast.

[PaulsMom]

Hugs.  I would try breast compressions while feeding.  Breast compression

Also do you think that your let down is slow?  Perhaps he's expecting milk now!  You can try hand expression into a cloth before he latches so the milk is already there. 

I wouldn't worry too much about being able to pump an oz or two after a feed.  Def feed this to him in a bottle afterwards or may be for a night feed that DH can do  .

Wrt variable lengths of time between feeds, I found this to be the case with both of mine in the early days.  Unfortunately at this age a 5 hr stretch at night is pretty good.  They have so many gs early on that it does seem like you have to feed them all. The. Time.

Do make sure you eat well.  I also lost all of my pg weigh within 1 month with my DS and for both I'm below my pre pg weight now that I've been bf my dd for almost 11 months.  Make sure you drink enough water as well. 

Ultimately the decision to bf or ff is up to you.  Personally I've enjoyed bf both my kids.  I'm thankful that I don't have to sterilize bottles and prepare them but then I was the sole person feeding dd for 6 months (my son took a bottle).  HTh

[clazzat]

Is he gaining weight well? If so, then you don't need to worry about him getting enough milk. Mine were quick feeders too, and I also found that at around 10-12 weeks they went from feeding for 15ish minutes to about 5 all of a sudden, and they would get frustrated if I tried to make them eat more. I don't think that what you can pump afterwards is particularly relevant with regards to whether he has had enough - you might just be producing more than he needs.

As for overnight I think it is quite normal for them to manage less than 5 hours at a stretch at this age, so I don't think that is an indicator either. Their tummies really are very small, and bm digests very quickly. To give you an idea of how small his tummy is, look at his fist - that is the size of his tummy, so you can see it really doesn't hold very much.

Do you want to continue bf'ing? If you do, then this is just a hurdle that we can help you get over. It's not always a smooth journey, but if you want to do it then it can be done. If you want to move to ff, though, that is entirely your choice and there is plenty of support on the boards for that too.

[Khalam's Mama]

I also lost my weight really quickly while eating loads after ds1 below my prepg weight. My kiss were both huge and my Yves said I probably had high calorie milk so maybe that is why they are good quick feeders. 6 he's is the max you would expect a kid this age to be sleeping really so 5 is totally normal if not desirable.
I would try to stretch the feeds as best you can to avoid snacking but 3 to 4 months was one huge growth spurt for us too.

[mariamac]

Thank for all the great advice.
I know that my let down is quite fast and I can see milk running from my breast when he lets go. My main concern is more that he will easily eat up to 80 ml more of formula after he has had a go at the breast and after he no longer wants to suck at the breast. Is he then really getting enough after a bad feeding where he has been bobbing on and of and only wants to suck for like 3 min?
While we are getting him on the 3 h EASY routine I have been waking him from his naps to keep fairly weel with the eating times and if I feed him imidiately after I wake him before he has fully awakened he is much more well behaved at the breast and will suck for up to 5 min and only let go a few times. This seems more like a regular meal to me. It is the same when he has his dreamfeed.
Also for how long should I keep waking him up from his naps to keep him on the EASY routine? When can I count on it to be established and for him to wake up from the naps on his own. It seems like he never takes long naps in the morning which results in him sleeping the rest of the day after like 2 pm. I wake him up when it is time for his feeds and then 10 min later he is tiered again and then he sleeps untill I wake him up again at his next approximate feeding time. Is this normal?

[clazzat]

It is very unusual that any baby will not take more milk from the bottle after they have finished a bf - it comes out so easily they drink it anyway, even when they are full. It sounds like you might have an over active let-down - I did - and that means that the milk comes out really quickly to start with but then slows down. Baby doesn't have to work at all for the first few minutes of the feed and then can't be bothered to work for the rest of it. When it is causing problems, you can express a couple of oz before you feed him - so the let down is finished and he has to work the same amount for the whole feed - or try feeding lying down so that gravity is working in your favour and he still has to work for the feed. The reason that he feeds better when he is drowsy is because he is not thinking about it so much - a lot of los feed much better when they haven't woken up fully.

I always had to wake mine at the end of their naps otherwise they would have slept too long - some are just like that. If he is not giving you a decent nap in the morning then it could be a routine issue.

[Fiver]

You've been given some great advice already.
Here are a few FAQs to give you some more information about some of the things that have been mentioned:

Breast compression
"My baby doesn't nurse as long as she used to"
Oversupply and Overactive (Forceful) Let-Down

[<Catherine>]

I have an 11 week old and he's a quick feeder too - max of 5 mins on each breast for each feed. He's been like that for several weeks now and is gaining weight really well.

[mariamac]

Thank you all for the great advice. I will keep a close eye on his weight gain and keep "fighting" with him at the breast

[Khalam's Mama]

Keep posting, there are loads of mums who have had problems bf too who might have btdt. Good luck.

[mariamac]

It turned out that my milk production was actually quite low especially in the afternoon. He had not gained as much weight as he should in the last month. So when he was "fighting" with me at the breast it was because he was still hungry but there was no more milk. No I feed him from both sides and even give him a bottle after he has been at both breasts to make sure he is full. Sometime mostly in the night or in the morning I have enough for him and he will not take the bottle but most often he eats some from the bottle. After he is getting full his weight started increasing again and he now sleeps much better both at naps and at night. I'm trying to increase my milk supply by also pumping after he is done, but if my milk production does not increase in the next week or so I think we will transition to bottle feeding. After he is now getting full he has also almost stopped fighting with me at the breast Now we only "fight" when he is really tiered when I feed him for the night

[Fiver]

It's completely normal for milk supply to be lower during the afternoon evening.  There may be less in terms of quantity, but it is higher in fat.  What you can do after feeding from both sides is to go back and start over again.  There's no such thing as "no more milk" as your body produces milk in response to demand (sucking) from your LO.  It sounds like there may have been some issues somewhere with letdown, but that you might be over that hump now.