Hi All,
I'm sure someone has run into this situation. My sister just had a baby about 3 weeks ago. She tried to nurse (and is still trying). Meanwhile she has been giving my niece formula. My niece is a very "lazy" eater. It takes her about hour to eat 2 ozs. She takes a 1/2 oz, falls asleep, wakes up 15 minutes later and starts the whole process over again. We have tried changing her diaper before she eats. We have takens blankets away, but nothing seems to work. Any suggestions. It's getting to the point, my sister is only able to get a few hours a sleep a day, since this is more or less around the clock feeding.
Thanks you!
Contact Le Leche League. They have great online line forums and local meetings. See: http://www.llli.org/nb.html
have you spoken with a lactation consultant? The Breastfeeding resource center in Glenside is great - they helped with several problems I had nursing at different points - and were real lifesavers. They have a sliding fee scale based on your ability to pay - and they are much more knowledgeable than the hospital-based consultants. Good luck!
Well this sounds like what I ran into with my 2nd child. He was a month premature and i was set on breast feeding him. I pumped milk constantly and when it was time to nurse him it was a joint effort between my husband or my mother and I. I would be ready while one of them woke him up enough to latch on. We used a wash cloth on his face or tickled his bare feet and always undressed him to his diaper. It was not easy and i was ready to give up constantly but after a few weeks it was as if it came naturally. I would keep on trying and if she has to pump milk for now and offer it in a bottle till the baby is ready to latch on to the breast.The key is to keep nudging the baby to wake up or to massage your breast to get the baby to start suckeling again when she falls asleep. My son just turned 3 and he is very healthy and loving. I believe a lot of it had to do with breast feeding. I now have a 2 week old also and she is an excellent feeder. All babies are diffrent!
Hi J.
I had the same problem when I was trying to breastfeed my son. He was also very lazy in his eating. What we found that worked was establishing some type of schedule with him, this took about a week of anguish and then he learned to feed at specific times. This might not work with your sisters baby.
It is going to take some work to get the baby on a better sleep and feed schedule although the profits of sleep for the mother will make it worthwhile.
When our daughter was born she was a nicu baby. The nurses would have us feed her every three hours and they would have us remove the blanket and wake her up. The other thing they said was to hold her just a little bit away from our body because it is the warm snuggling that makes them sleepy. The other thing is is she may not be truly hungry at the timee. I would try to go a little longer between feeds so that way she is "hungry" and will eat 2 oz with out falling asleep. When they are hungry they should eat that 2 oz in about 20-30 min. In the nicu we started to fall into to your sisters pattern and the nurses said I was setting me self up for a lot of work if we did not get a good schedule down. www.livegreeneasy.com
Hi J. -
I ran into this problem with my twins, so I was getting no rest. I found that if I changed their diapers when they started to fall asleep the first time, they would wake up and finish their bottles. Good luck to your sister.
J.
Have you tried La Leche League or a Breastfeeding Resource Center? Healthy Baby Line 1-800-986-2229
Have you tried letting the baby get nice and hungry? Maybe she'll do better if you let her get very hungry. My sister and I both breastfed and we both had to resort to things like cold rags/wipes on their skin to keep them awake. I would take my son's socks off and tickle his feet, it annoyed him but he stayed awake. There are a few breastfeeding resource centers in PA, unfortunately I don't have the contact info. Try looking on the internet. As long as the baby is wetting diapers and having a normal bowel movement she's fine as far as dehydration/starvation goes. Have you tried stopping the formula? Babies don't need all that much food in the beginning. My doctor told me to just watch the diaper and as long as he was wetting and pooping it didn't matter how much he ate. He would eat when he was hungry. Babies don't have a problem telling you when they are hungry.
The best thing to do is to find someone who knows about nursing. I was given bad advice by the nurses in the hospital but luckily I had taken a class beforehand. Babies R Us gives Seminars on the topic of Breastfeeding. I hope this helps.
My son was like that. I eventually gave up nursing...becaause he was so bad about it...It went on like that for about 2 months...the up all day and night feeding him. Eventually I ended up putting a tiny amount of cereal in the formula, so that he would have something more substantial in his body. That seemed to work. When he was about 2 1/2 months everything started getting better. He started slleping more and eating better.
Hi J.,
In the past, I've kept the baby undressed (just in diapers) while nursing. I also would keep a cold wet washcloth nearby. When the baby starts to doze, gently tickle the baby's feet w/ the washcloth. You can also try other parts of the body such as under the chin, behind the neck, etc... just enough to keep the baby awake while she nurses.
Hope that helps!
