Let the weight gaining stress begin *sigh*

[Barb Glare]

Hi, Sarah,

You are doing a fabulous job. I did a little happy dance with you when you said the other day how elated you were at breastfeeding for 2 weeks. But, let's keep a good thing going, eh? The weight gain matters some-what. It's not 'panic stations" but it is a red flag. Most babies have regained their birthweight by 2 weeks. (homebirthed babies generally don't lose the 10% we consider normal these days) And she is a big fabulous girl. But, I think she's a bit "too" good. (when will we learn that a "good" baby is in fact not one who sleeps a lot, but one who is up *yelling* for her tucker every couple of hours). So, to ensure that she continues to go well, would you wake her during the night and feed her - every 3 hours will be great? It will make the world of difference. Is she spending a long, long time on one boob? When you feed her, try giving her 20 mins or so on one boob, burp, change, tickle her toes and then give her a go on the other side. Make sure she has 8-12 feeds in 24hrs. when you take her back you will be amazed at the difference. You will get the health nurse of your case, and pretty soon you will be able to settle back to the longer sleeps if you wanted.

Talk soon
Barb

[meow]

The fact that she's gaining weight sounds good but coming from someone who decided to 'not worry' about the panic from midwives and MCHN's till my poor boy was so weak I had no choice but to comp feed with formula for a week to give him the energy to start feeding properly again I would recommend doing a bit extra now and not just ignoring things till they possibly get to a point you don't want to be at.

Not to panic you even more though- we are now at 10 weeks and BFing is going really well and my little boy is growing amazingly! It does improve

[{sarah}]

Barb she has acually started waking a bit more in the night of her own accord, maybe she was just extra sleepy for the first week & a half She generally feeds 1/2 an hour on each side at a time and around every three hours, the LC from the hospital told me not to let her go for more than 4 hours during the day so if she gets close to that I wake her up. Just thinking about it now, she's had six feeds so far today & she'll have another one around 9pm then probably not another until 2-3am. So that's seven today, unless she decides to cluster feed soon which she does some nights.

Cai, yep I knew what you'd say! I know all is good, she a happy contended little girl, but I like to stress, you know that

And thank you to everyone else. My brain & instincts knows that we're doing the right thing, but she just put that niggly doubt there.

[mrsmac]

Sarah- Jess didn't get back to her birth weight until she was 4 weeks old and she is now a healthy 16 yr old!! My then MIL helpfully told me I was starving her but my MCHN was fabulous and not too concerned, even my obs said she was just big born and was adjusting to be more what he would expect her to be from how big I was etc.

[Cally]

It took DD just over 4 weeks to get back to her birth weight. And today she got called thunder thighs at swimming!

[Willow]

Sarah, was just thinking about this again while bathing the kids (yes, I have no life of my own! LOL!) and Barb has posted what I was thinking too - she seems to sleep a lot at night, so if you wanted to boost her intake a bit, you could always wake her and feed more often during the night?? Totally up to you of course, you seem pretty happy with the way things are, and it seems she might be waking more at night anyway.

[Barb Glare]

Hi,
That's great that she is waking in the night for feeds. She's getting the hang of it. I would change the daytime routine to feeding her every 3 hours.
I have to go against the prevailing thought a little bit. 80g is great,and common enough in the first week or so when baby is sleepy, mum has had a cesarean etc, but as an ongoing thing, 80-g per week for a young baby is usually not enough and will ultimately lead to low supply. (This is different from say a 3mnth old baby - their weight slows down around that point) You will notice a few extra feeds per day sort everything out very quickly
Regards
Barb

[Laranna]

I'm glad I came across this thread Sarah as I was going to post something similar. Joshua had his weigh in today because when the CHN came to see us 2 weeks ago he had not regained his birth weight. And he still hasn't!

At birth he was 3195 and lost 10.9% of his weight. When we left hospital on day 7 he weighed 2950 (gained 105grams in the week). When the CHN came out on day 10, he weighed 3kg exactly. As he wasn't back to his birth weight she wanted him reweighed today where he weighs 3150. Only 150gram weight gain in 2 weeks.

I have to give credit to my CHN though because she said herself we didn't want to go to formula. Instead she suggested I start feeding him from both sides for about 15 minutes each side and then express for a few minutes after every feed to try and boost my supply. She wants me to go back in a week to get him reweighed and if he hasn't put on 150grams then she'll refer me to a lactation consultant.

But it certainly does make me feel inadequate to think maybe I am not feeding him enough (he feeds every 2-3 hours day and night). It would be fantastic if our boobs had some kind of gauge on them so we know how much our bubs are getting and how full our boobs are!