Sleepy baby-impossible to wake for feeds

[miasmum]

Hi, my dd is 2.5 weeks old and is impossible to wake for feeds.  I know she is very young and all this will probably change but I am finding it difficult.  She will wake ok during the night - every 3-4 hours and feeds for 20-40 minutes but during the day she has to be woken.  She is very sleepy and at least one feed will just be a feed and back to sleep.  She is on a four hour pattern during the day only because I wake her.  I find it very hard to keep her awake apart from feeding.  To keep her awake I hold her upright, I tickle her ears and her hands, I move her arms and legs and nothing.  The only thing that gets her a bit annoyed is changing her nappy and then she goes back to sleep when I pick her up.  She was slightly jaundiced at birth but this seems to have gone now.  Two of her awake times during the day are ok - 1-1.5 hours but she wakes better at night than during the day.  If she is awake during the up time she still has 3 hours sleep between feeds - is this ok.

I have tried to tank her up but I could not wake her to save myself.  Any suggestions, or should I just be happy she is sleeping at the moment and enjoy it?  I feel silly writing this because I was on this message board 2 years ago complaining that my 1st daughter would never sleep!  

Thanks for any help or advise you may have.

[Samuel's mum]

Congratulations!
That oxytocin hormone is powerful stuff! I can understand it must be difficult and hopefully we can lead you to some help on this board.

It is very important that you do continue to wake her for feeding during the day as you obviously know. In fact usually a newborn is feeding more like every 2.5 -3 hours to be honest. Some even 2-2.5 hours. This more frequent feeding is important in the early days to develop your milk supply (and the hormone prolactin) Prolactin levels are established in the first few weeks and once established control your supply for the rest of your time breastfeeding.

You don't really want her longer intervals to be in the day and her shorter ones at night. If she is also more 'alert' when waking a night it could be she is 'reverse cycling' - has day for night.

This is an article about that from La Leche League:
http://www.lalecheleague.org/NB/NBJanFeb95p14.html

Here's another article which emphasises the importance of frequent feeding:
http://www.breastfeeding-basics.com/html/waking_a_sleepy_baby.shtml

If she is awake during the up time she still has 3 hours sleep between feeds - is this ok.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this but the main thing is you want to encourage her to have shorter intervals during the day and the longer ones at night!! You really don't want to go longer than 3-4 hours from the beginning of one feed to the next start of a feed. As the articles above say even a 3-4 hour interval for a newborn is long.

A sleepy newborn is such a common issue on these boards. I'm assuming you are happy with weight gain and she is getting at least 6 wet nappies in 24 hours? I know my comments about her needing to feed more regularly will not have reassured you but I hope you understand that I feel it's important for me to be honest with you.

If you really do feel worried I would suggest you phone a helpline or the La Leche League. It needn't cost you money to speak to an expert.

[nickatumba]

i had the exact same problem with my now 4 month old, the first month was just like you were explaining, he was only awake for about 2 hours during the day! and i had to keep waking him up every 2 1/2 to 3 hours to feed. as he was almost 4 weeks early, i had to make sure he was getting plenty of milk.

i did find that if i took all of his clothes off, and just fed him in his diaper, and when he started to fall asleep, open up his little hand and rub his palm, it seemed to keep him awake enough to get through a feeding. hope that helps!

now that he is 4 months old, he will only wake up once during the night (between 8:30 pm and 6:00 am) which i find unbeliveable, considering my first 2 children didn't sleep through the night till well into their first birthdays! He still sleeps quite a bit during the day but around 3 in the afternoon untill 6:00 pm he is usually wide awake and babbling and kicking up a storm.

hope it helps