I called the La Leche League helpline for breastfeeding assistance. The lady I talked to called me back and talked me down off the ceiling. She was great. She said it doesn’t matter if Ellis feeds all the time which was alright and a bit frustrating at the same time. It really is all a bit much sometimes. Ellis is losing weight and my mum is hovering practically poised above him with a bottle. Throw in the whole “I’m a failure if I can’t feed my own baby” thing then I’m what you might officially describe as a mess.
I keep having mad hormonal highs and lows so I’m in tears over rescue dog adverts and breastfeeding and then I’m giggling like an idiot at something in the newspaper. Either I am bi-polar or I’ve just had a baby! Looking at the small creature in the cot next to me, I think it’s the latter.
This is an e-mail I sent to a friend:
Any sage thoughts on this one….little bugger keeps falling off after a couple of minutes…then screaming blue murder. So he snacks through the day – We’re having to top him up with bottles of formula which I suspect is compounding the problem so I bought a breast pump which is getting a stupidly disappointing 2 – 3 oz a time….so how do you increase supply….someone suggested pumping more..but he’s eating all the time so when am I supposed to do that! 
This was his wife’s response – I love my friends, there’s nothing they can’t solve.
Here are some things to check out:
* if he keeps falling off after a couple of minutes, he’s not getting a full feed. A fast-sucking experienced older baby still needs at least 5 minutes to get most of a breast and most young babies start out kind of inefficient. He needs lots of practice and time. Can you take a breastfeeding vacation (e.g. a few days) where you just lie in bed naked with him (with a blanket pulled over you two) and let him sip and suck and feed whenever he feels like it? Some babies need to feed continuously until your supplies build up and he learns how to get the milk he wants.
* DO NOT use formula; it’s going to sabotage breastfeeding when the baby is so small and learning how to feed properly. Formula is sweeter than breastmilk and easier to get out of a bottle–he’ll prefer bottles of formula to breastmilk from your body. But he needs to work his jaw/tongue/mouth muscles to get breastmilk from you; it will help him later on with teeth and jaw alignment, as well as talking.
* Feed in a calm, quiet room where he can look at you and feel safe, cuddled and warm. Talk or sing to him softly if you don’t like the silence.
* This is what I did with mine when she wasn’t gaining enough weight: Start her off on one breast, then when she fell off of that one, switch her to the other, when she fell off of that one, just switch back, back and forth until she absolutely refused to feed anymore or fell asleep. Soon enough, she started to feed longer at one breast and there were fewer switches between the breasts. Her eventual routine became breast 1 as a snack or thirst-quencher, breast 2 for quite a while, then back to breast 1 until she was full and happy or asleep. It didn’t matter whether I started with the right or left breast either. She just liked that rhythm.
If he’s angry and falling off the breast, make sure these basics are working before heading for formula…
LATCH and POSITIONING:
* Babies aren’t born knowing how to feed; they have to learn and some are poor suckers or bad latchers. This is a great site for help with getting a baby properly latched and feeding: http://www.breastfeedingonline.com/newman.shtml
Read the handouts (especially latching and breast compression) and/or take a look at the videos. (Dr. Newman is one of the best in the world when it comes to breastfeeding–if he helps you, you might want to support his work. Breastfeeding is so important and yet gets no money or support…whereas multinationals get huge tax breaks and government support to sell formula.)
* Another excellent site for breastfeeding and more: http://www.kellymom.com/bf/index.html (She’s a certified lactation consultant and her information is well-researched and consistent with best practices around the world.)
SLOW LETDOWN
A colleague of mine in Hong Kong was a cow–she literally released so much milk when her son started feeding that he’d sometimes choke on the flow. She could also get about 10 oz. of milk pumping AFTER he finished feeding. I was not this miraculous creature. I have a slow letdown and it takes about 30 seconds of solid sucking because any substantial amount of milk starts flowing. If he’s too hungry when he latches on, sometimes he gets red in the face and howls because the milk isn’t instantly there. I try to feed when mine starts mouthing, sucking his fingers or fussing–well before he starts crying for food (crying is one of the last signs of baby hunger, not the first).
When he has been kept waiting too long and is already crying, I will squeeze my nipple to make sure that there are a couple of big drops of milk on the nipple when it goes into his mouth. He tastes the sweet milk, calms down and sucks greedily to get more.
If you have a slow letdown, that could frustrate your baby who sucks and sucks when not much comes out at first. In this case, a pump can come in handy: you get your letdown started BEFORE the baby latches on so that with his first suck, he’ll get a mouthful of milk and so his sucking is rewarded and he sucks harder and more.
PUMPING
Some women are slow or low producers of breastmilk but they can increase their milk by pumping (fenugreek tea or fenugreek pills have also been shown to work, up to 900% increase in some women). In this situation, you don’t pump to save and store milk, so it doesn’t matter if you only pump 1 oz. or even less. You are convincing your breasts that the baby is still hungry and they need to produce more for him. (That’s why formula can be so sabotaging for breastfeeding moms. When a baby gets formula, it takes LESS milk from the breasts, which primes them to make less milk, which makes baby less satisfied when he feeds and often leads to him getting more formula because he still seems hungry. It becomes a vicious cycle unless one plans very very carefully or gets professional help from a lactation consultant.)
A two-pronged plan:
1) fenugreek tea/pills
2) after every feed, pump till your breasts are empty or definitely feel lighter
Your breasts will respond with more milk within 48-72 hours.
Another possible reason for your baby seeming to be hungry all the time: When a baby goes through a growth spurt, he will feed more and more often (often seeming fussy), signalling the breasts to produce more but it takes about 2-3 days before the breasts increase their capacity to meet the baby’s new needs. Growth spurts happen often in the first month, then at 4-6 weeks, 3 months, 4 months, 6 months and 9 months approximately. It’s not just physical growth but also when babies need more energy to reach developmental milestones such as rolling over and crawling.
