Breastfeeding Question - Fort Stewart,GA

I had trouble breastfeeding both my kids. I just did not have much supply. My lactation consultants told me to do this and I did it...and it did not help much. Or maybe it did - maybe I would have had zero milk if I had not done it. It was totally exhausting. With my second child I let her sleep even though again I had very little supply. It felt more relaxed but I did dry up faster. Maybe some women just do not have many lactating glands or whatever and I'm an unlucky one.

You know, I never took a class on BF --it was covered in the birthing group I attended which my midwives headed, and they were mostly encouraging demand feeding (or as I call it, feeding on cue). Never dealt with a lactation consultant.

That said, I did have a dreamy nurser who often nodded off at the boob, similar to Michelle C. She's right that stripping him down helped somewhat. Because I also felt he needed his sleep, I would pump once or twice a day, just to keep my milk up. (If he finished one side and I was still 'full' on the other side, rather than waiting for him to wake up, I just pumped that full side.) While it did increase my milk production for a while, it also ensured that I had milk later when I needed it. For me, I got more milk in the first few months of having him than I would later on. He did gain weight just fine, and usually never went past about 2.5 hours before wanting to nurse again.

That's ... interesting.

My youngest is almost 4, but I was always told to feed on demand. When my oldest was a newborn, we were told to wake him every 3 hours to feed, but that was because he was jaundice. Jaundice babies need to "poop out the billirubin," hence the need to eat frequently.

Unless there is a specific medical concern, I thought feeding on demand was ideal.

Oh no no no...don't you know that rule 1 is you don't wake a sleeping baby?? LOL... Seriously, though, unless there is a medical reason to feed your baby on a schedule, just feed on demand. The nurse at the hospital told me the same thing, all about unwrapping the baby, etc. I just fed both of mine when they wanted to be fed. Which was VERY often, sans schedule. Barring some serious medical condition, micro preemie, etc, a baby will not just go to sleep and starve. My advice to all new moms is just remember baby opens mouth, insert boob, and change diapers when dirty. Anything else is superfluous. You can't really go wrong that way :)

I fed on demand and there was no way on God's green earth that I was going to wake up a sleeping baby to force them to feed. NO. WAY. I was a great breast feeder too - I was built for it.

Every one of my kids slept through the night from the day they were born. Near as I can tell god knew I would be an abusive b if I didn't get my sleep, who knows. What I do know is with none of them was there ever a supply issue.

I do remember in the hospital every few hours in the night they would bring me a sleeping baby and insist I feed them. After consulting with the sleeping child I would page the nurse and say never mind. Perhaps this is a nurse thing. :p

I always fed on demand, but my babies certainly never tried to go three hours between feedings or slept for three hours at a stretch as newborns. My best friend had to wake her son up every three hours to feed him for the first couple of months. That kid liked to sleep. Anyway, it doesn't sound like the nurse was suggesting not feeding on demand, just that she was suggesting you offer a feeding to a newborn who isn't demanding to eat. Putting the baby on a schedule would mean making a baby wait three hours to nurse, even if baby is hungry.

I nursed both my kids on demand.
But they rarely, went too long, My kids woke every 1 or 2 or 3 hours at most. 24/7, day and night. And I nursed.

The Lactation Consultant probably didn't say anything, because she maybe did not want to irk the Nurse or go against her opinion, in front of everyone. And she is a "new" employee.

No, I never woke my babies to feed them. But, I don't remember them going more than 3 hours between feedings at the beginning. Once my supply was very established and baby was gaining weight well, I did try to work into a schedule of every 3 hours. But that wasn't until at least 2 months old, and even then, during growth spurts, it was more often.

Maybe if you have a really sleepy baby you need to do this, or if your baby isn't gaining weight well. But otherwise, no.

I never took the nurse's advice. I nursed when my child was hungry. For the first few days they barely suckle usually. And you'll be so glad to get them off your nipple after a few minutes! Getting used to it (desensitizing) is freaking awful! If you KNOW the child is hungry but they dose back off, which is very common, kangaroo care (skin to skin) is great, and you can also stroke the face with your boob. Sounds odd, but it works. They can smell the milk way before they can see your nipple. Trust your Mommy instincts. :)

I agree with L. F. I love the babywise series...not just the first one. I also used their "method" for potty training.

Feed every 3 hours in the first few days, then you could probably go 4 until baby is two weeks. Then, let him/her sleep! I successfully breastfed my daughter for a year and my baby is 8 months and still soley breastfed. They are good sleepers, sleeping through the night by 10 weeks. I do not feed "on demand." Keep in mind that babies cry for other reasons, so don't be quick to feed the baby every time he/she cries. The baby will get used to snacking. When you feed the baby, try hard to do a full feeding. If baby falls asleep, wake him/her and make sure to feed for 10-15 minutes at least. With a full feeding, baby should go 2-3 hours as a newborn. In the evening, do feedings a little closer together, and that helps them go longer at night.

Congrats on the upcoming baby. I also failed first time BF and took a class my second go around. An exclusively breast fed baby is really not likely to go more than three hour. But many times people succumb, or need to supplement with a bit of formula. Formula fed and supplemented newborns can go 4 and 5 hours without eating. My first did and I thought it was great at the time. However, there are only 24 hours in a day, so I only averaged 6-7 feedings a day. Looking back its one of the reasons we failed at bf. You really need to get those 8 feedings in to stimulate your milk production. Do the math, that means baby needs to eat on average every three hours. For your milk supply, aim for 8 feedings. Now if baby sleeps 4 hours in a row in the night, and say he/she does this twice in the wee hours of the night so you only have to get up once instead of twice, keep that, its great, but do a little make up feeding in the day and space those feeding 2 hours apart. Keep those 8 feedings until your milk is well established.
In the same way that you should not let a baby go over three hours (give or take), you want to encourage them to make it 2 hours or you will be too exhausted and soar to continue BF. My second was a snack feeder, she couldn't make if more than an hour and sometimes just never really stopped nursing all day and all night. It turns out she had an ineffective suck, she ate all day and was still starving. I'm sooooo grateful my lactation consultant talk me out of demand feeding. I would never have make it. She told me that I needed to supplement just a touch to get that baby to go two hours or I was going to burn out. I'm so glad she saw how close I was to burn out because I was hell bent on demand feeding exclusively with BM and no formula. I was carrying my left over failures from the first child into my second experience and we were dealing with two different babies with different struggles. I'm so glad I put my trust in my lactation consultant. We only supplemented with a syringe full of formula, and as I was able we supplemented with pumped BM. All this bought me a little time for rest between feedings. Without rest your body will not produce milk. So yes, that 2-3 hours is golden if you want to BF. Failure is easily achieved if for some reason the baby cues outside of this tired and proven time between feedings. And yes sometimes you will need to demand feed/ cluster feed in the beginning until everyone gets the hang of it. The good news is that three hours between feedings is what most babies fall into without much manipulation. Should your baby not fall into that schedule easily, I would manipulate it by waking the baby (especially in the day time) or with minimal syringe supplementing (ideally with pumped BM) to get baby to go at least two hours between feedings (for your benefit). Just make sure you are working with a good lactation consultant. For us woman who struggle with BF, trouble shooting problems on our own is a bad idea. Take if from someone who struggled and failed, as well as struggled and succeeded to BF. I've been on both ends of the spectrum- a baby who goes 4-5 hours and a baby who couldn't even make it 2 hours all day and all night- both are recipes for failure. Working towards a 2-3 hour feedings does not mean "starving your baby for three hours".

I think all of those suggestions are dependent on so many factors & you have to take those into consideration.

What's your milk supply like?
Is the baby gaining appropriate weight?
If you wake baby, will they even eat well?

My two babies that I exclusively breastfed , I had to take totally different approaches with. They had different breast feeding habits & my body reacted differently.

After day 1 my kids were wanting to nurse all the time. If they have been sleeping for more than a few hours, change their diaper, which should wake them up and then they will want to eat.

The issue is that a newborn has a very small stomach, and if they don't nurse every 3 -ish hours, there is a real chance that they will become dehydrated, particularly if they're going that long regularly. Dehydration can be very serious at that age. Nursing that often will also help establish your milk supply, of course, and for the first few weeks, most babies will rarely sleep longer than 2-3 hours anyway.

My best advice in building your milk supply is to nurse often -- really anytime you think your baby might possibly want to nurse, do it. People might say you're nursing too often, but it's key to really having a lot of milk. It's a demand and supply system -- the more they suck, the more you make. And when they hit a growth spurt, it's not unusual for a baby to nurse for 2 hours straight, sleep for an hour, and then have another 2 hour nursing session. Don't worry if your baby does that -- it's not that he or she isn't getting enough -- it's just a growth spurt and upping your supply to meet the new demands. It's supposed to work like that. But now I'm giving more advice than you asked for. Good luck!

With my newborn the hospital lactation consultant told me the same thing..to make sure i feed at least every two hours. What helped me when he did not want to wake to nurse during the day is I would strip him down to his diaper which startled him for a moment enough to wake, bring him up to me and he latched on and I covered the outside of him with a blanket. The skin to skin "kangaroo care" was also suggested to me at the hospital. This worked. I called them dream feeds because my son would more often than not fall back to sleep but nursed at the same time. I don't remember exactly how long this went on (in weeks) because he just turned 5 years last weekend but it was not long before he wanted to nurse every 2 hours on his own during the day. I do remember for a couple of months from 5-8 he cluster fed/ nursed a few minutes on and off constantly during that time. That eventually worked itself into a 2 hour schedule leading to bedtime feed...not that is saying much, he did not sleep through the night until 19 mos so woke to nurse a few times after the "bedtime feed." :-)

So short answer, I do think this helped establish the relationship and get to a every 2 hour schedule by his own choice.

Edited to add after reading the other responses...I too agree she did not mean to intend for you not to feed on demand but to make sure you encouraged afeeding if needed if he tries to go more than 3 hours. In effect, me encouraging the feeding he was trying to miss when he was asleep early on helped to put him on his own "on demand" type of schedule. After a couple of weeksm I was not watching the clock and offering because he was 'demanding" to be nursed every couple of hours :-)

I nursed on demand unless she went longer than 4 hours - then I woke her up. Feeding on a schedule is more for bottle babies and mom's convenience and an outdated advice.
Good luck.

Just trying to stick to your question...I think the nurse's point was that, for the first week or so, baby might be extra-sleepy. From being little, from epidural effects, whatever. So for that week, make sure you're feeding every 2-3 hours. Which may include waking baby. After that, as long as baby is gaining well and has good wet diapers, then the schedule goes out the window and simply feed on demand. Baby will dictate the timing from then on out. Good luck, and reach out to the hospital LC or La Leche League when baby comes if you need anything!

I did pretty much what the nurse said and it worked out well for me. On the RARE occassion either of mine slept more than 2-3 hours I would wake them and feed them. I maybe did this a handful of times. (Also my kids were jaundiced so they needed to drink alot, not just for milk supply)..But this did not create any "schedule" per se. In fact I would like to see someone try and put a newborn on a schedule and let me know how that works for you ;)

I think she just meant that if you have baby who for some reason sleeps too long or doesn't seem hungry...that you should at the MINIMUM be feeding every three hours, in order to keep your milk supply up.

ETA: After about a week or two I didn't wake them during the night (they usually still woke me tho!)

I think every 2-3hrs the first few weeks he/she should be woken up to feed. After that I let my LO sleep as long as he wanted in the night since he was gaining weight, usually going for a 4hr period and then waking every 3 hrs until morning. During the day he eats every 2-3hrs, sometimes in the evening he has a fussy period and wants to eat every hour. I still don't know if what I'm doing is correct but just remember that if he/she is surviving you are doing great! lol

I wake every 1.5 hours the first day, and then move to every 2 hours for the first week. I don't usually wake at night at all, but you bet, newborns need to every two hours from the start of their last feeding.

I did this with my second child, and he was sleeping 7 hours at night at 5 weeks.

I used a 3 hour flexible schedule for both of my girls. After they were two weeks old I didn't wake them at night. I would make the last feeding of the day around 9 pm and then let them sleep as long as they wanted at night. They became wonderful sleepers and I didn't go crazy feeding all day long. Number one started sleeping through the night at 16 weeks and number two at 9 weeks . My milk supply was fine with this schedule. I would also pump at night right before bed to help me not be so engorged in the morning.

I followed advice from the Babywise series and found it extremely helpful. I know a lot of people hate Babywise, but I loved it. And all I can say is I put my girls down at 7:00 pm and they get up at 7:00 am. It's a beautiful thing!

After the first couple of weeks I would not wake a sleeping baby to feed, it only teaches them that they NEED to wake up and that they need food to fall back to sleep. If the baby is sleeping on its own through the night let it sleep. My boys both slept through the night by around 5 weeks.

It was my Ped that told me not to force night feeding if the baby, after the first couple of weeks of course, was able to sleep for longer stretches. Let your baby lead the way.

I nursed on demand. I never, ever woke my baby up to eat at night, except for the several nights I was in the hospital, when the nurses insisted I do it (and would come wake me to make sure I did it). There was no medical reason to do so, and my pediatrician advised me that it was better to encourage healthy babies to sleep as long as possible during the night. She even rolled her eyes when I mentioned the nurses. During the day, I would wake my baby to feed if s/he slept for more than 4 hours. Both of my children slept through the night at an early age, so that's also my plan if Baby #3 ever comes along. I did have some struggles with breastfeeding, but they were health-related.