Breast feeding

klock11

My baby is 4 days old and seems to do fine during the day the nurses told us feed for 20 mins every two hours and during the day that satisfies him. But tonight he nursed 25 mins on each breast and is still crying and sucking fingers. He has been burped and is dry is it possible he is still hungry and why how long do I need to feed for? And hour just seems so long

lizzypoo96

I definitely had a few hour long feedings at that point. Your LO is still trying to figure out how to get the milk- twenty minutes may not be enough time! We can easily fill him up in twenty minutes now at eleven weeks- but it took time to get there!

Bigboobsmcgee

Are you sure you are making enough milk for him? I know he's only 4 days old but that was the problem with my first child.

I'd ask the breastfeeding board!

Lalala2326

You need to not look at the clock. Look at your baby. If your baby is still rooting and sucking fingers, put the baby back to the breast to eat. My first would eat for 45min to an hour 12-14 times a day. My second eats for about 10-15 min and is completely satisfied but still eats every 1-2 hours usually (from start of feeding to start of feeding) during the day but gives me a couple longer stretches of sleep. Every baby is different, and 20 min, quite frankly, is just not much early on. Check out some of the articles on kellymom.com for what to expect in the early months. You are going to have all sorts of growth spurts and wonder weeks coming up also with cluster feeding marathons and fussy nursing. It is all completely normal. Breastfeeding is supply and demand. The more the baby nurses, the more milk you will have for him. These early weeks are so so so important for building up your supply. You absolutely cannot nurse too much ( baby will not overeat), but you definitely can nurse too little! That is what happens to most so many people. They get worried in those early days that they aren't producing enough so they supplement, then because they aren't nursing during that time, their supply drops, then they really are having supply issues. Honestly, so many breastfeeding problems (not all - but most!) could be solved if you just stop watching the clock and keep breastfeeding on demand.

Some of these articles may help:

https://kellymom.com/hot-topics/newborn-nursing/
https://kellymom.com/hot-topics/frequent-nursing/
https://kellymom.com/hot-topics/milkproduction/
https://kellymom.com/bf/normal/hunger-cues/
https://kellymom.com/bf/normal/love-breastfeeding-24-7/
https://kellymom.com/ages/newborn/bf-basics/second-night/
https://kellymom.com/mother2mother/m2m-fussiness/
https://kellymom.com/hot-topics/growth-spurts/