?s about nursing... do you have slow eaters?

[peanut4us]

Whew, we are finally back from the hospital, again. Poor little Sara only got to be home for 3 days before going back to the hospital with bili rubin. So now she's been home again for 5 days. But she has been under Dr.'s orders to have supplemental formula to regain the weight she lost while sick. So, I nurse her, hubby feeds her expressed bottle milk and then formula if she is still hungry. Talk about a veritable buffet!

Here's my question. As she has felt better, she is more interested in nursing, but she will ONLY nurse with a nipple shield (going to lactation consultant tomorrow for this). I know the shields slow down transfers, but it still seems insane to me that she will nurse for 1 hour, then still eat all of the EBM and about an ounce of formula. Is an hour normal to nurse? How long do your lovies nurse? Also, any tricks for very sleepy babies. Sometimes she just doesn't want to wake up, and I don't want her hanging out for 2 hours. SHe won't wake up and cry when she is hungry, so we have to wake her every 3 hours.

Last squeeze in question... how big/old do they have to be to go in a swing?

Thanks,

Joey, mother to Sara Anne, 3/27/03

[August Mom]

I'm sorry that you have had such a rough beginning. I hope Sara is all better now.

I never supplemented or gave a bottle after nursing, but my DS sometimes nursed for around an hour when he was first born. My ped thought this was too long and that he should nurse for half an hour max. However, personally I think you have to go with your gut. We had a lot of latching problems in the beginning, so once DS was latched on, I didn't want to take him off the breast if he was still eating. After he was a little older (maybe 3 or 4 weeks?) he nursed fairly consistently for 30 minutes at a time. He typically nursed 20-30 minutes until he was 6 months old. Then he started nursing around 10 minutes.

As for sleepy babies, undressing them usually wakes them up. To get DS to keep sucking while nursing, I pumped his arm. This worked. He did not respond to me tickling his chin or blowing on his face.

As for the swing, you can use it right away fully reclined. Sara may or may not like it as this point. Good luck.

[C99]

Jeez, this sounds REALLY familiar (only Nate stayed in the hospital for 8 days straight w/ a high bilirubin count, and we didn't supplement with formula once he came home from hospital).

B/c Nathaniel was in the NICU for 8 days and started eating from a bottle, he had nipple confusion. He would only BF w/ a nipple shield. This lasted for about 8 weeks when I was gradually able to wean him off the shield. Before I was able to wean him, he would eat for an hour to 90 minutes straight. That could have been b/c he was a preemie and really inefficient or b/c of the nipple shield and really inefficient. Also, and the LC will probably tell you this too, if she knows that she can get milk from a bottle afterwards, she has no incentive to be more efficient on the nipple shield.

To wake her up, try walking your fingers up her spine. Also try taking off her cap and socks, tickling her toes, etc. To keep her sucking, try massaging your breast lightly to encourage let-down and thus her suck. It works better than tickling her face, etc.

hth

[emilyf]

Charlie was a slow eater too- my ped thought an hour was too long, but mainly for my sake-we would give him supplemental bottles of formula too in the beginning just to save my sanity. He seemed hungry all the time. There were lots of times that it was a good hour of nursing though. The good news is he got more efficient eventually, and I was able to drop the formula. He still eats for 20-30 min now, and boy do I envy my friends who nurse for 5 minutes and their babies are full! I think we started the swing around 6 weeks, but if yours has a recline I think you can start even sooner-we were lazy about getting the thing set up, but it was a real sanity saver once we did.
Emily
mom of Charlie born 11/02

[nitaghei]

Joey,
I'm so sorry to hear that you're going through this. I totally empathize - because that is what happened with us. DS was home for a day and then had to go back to NICU for several days because his bilirubin count was almost through the roof.

I don't really have much to add - you've already got excellent advice. Removing hat / socks /blankets helped us wake up DS, also pumping the arm. Sara's energy levels will pick up. At least she is nursing - DS had severe nipple confusion and refused to for weeks! As she gets better - and it can take two or more weeks, she should get more efficient at nursing. When we managed to convince DS that nursing was okay, he would stay on for about an hour (and he was 8 weeks old at that time). Now, just over a month later, DS can be done in about 15 minutes. So hang in there! Good luck - hope the LC can help.

Also - once DS was nursing well, we were able to stop the formula supplement.

Nita

[brubeck]

You've gotten good advice here so I'll just add moral support. When my daughter was born I had to supplement too (for other reasons) and I went through the same nipple shield/SNS/formula with bottle buffet you describe. It also took more than an hour to feed her and even after I got off all that other stuff she would take more than an hour to nurse. She was just a slow eater and I think because we had to start out with all of that extra stuff it didn't help her any.

The good news is that I just had a son at the end of last year and my experience with him is totally different. He will generally eat in 10 to 15 minutes, and a 'big' meal (such as before bed or first thing in the morning) takes 10 min per breast. However he didn't have any supplementation or nipple shields or SNS.

So I think it's just baby personality (perhaps influenced by early supplementation). They eat as quickly or as slowly as they want to.