Baby "drowns" on milk and takes her sweeeet time lol
My newborn daughter (a week old today) has been BFing great, at her pedi appt the doctor was impressed with her and she had actually gained weight her first week and is thriving. She is not an aggressive eater, she doesn't suck hard, and her feedings are usually only 5 minutes per breast, and it is hard to keep her awake. However, she is VERY content after feedings, and will happily sleep afterwards. I wake her up if she sleeps longer than 2 hours, and sometimes when she is awake I will try to encourage her to eat every 45 minutes since she isn't eating for very long periods of time.
That said, anytime I start to feed her my milk lets down very quick, and with her not being very aggressive, the milk just poooours. She will suckle and swallow very good for a few minutes, and get what seems like a good amount, and then takes alot of pauses inbetween to breathe/make her little noises... at which point the milk just steadily pours into her mouth, and her suction lessens so I have to encourage a better latch. Sometimes though if I totally disturb her latch, she will be done, so I've been just letting her stay however she wants to on my breast, just as long as she's getting milk and I'm not sore at all from it. I tickle her, use cold wash clothes to encourage her to "wake up" more, and it helps some but she still seems overloaded by the milk and it eventually pours all over her, lol. When she suckles just enough to keep the milk flowing, and then gets sleepy/relaxed, she also winds up having a minor coughing episode afterwards. My breasts feel emptied (ish) after, they lose their hardness and feel relief..
Does anyone have any ideas? Does it sound like I should worry that she's not a "power" eater, just as long as pedi says she is healthy and she seems very happy inbetween feedings? She's a VERY happy baby.
Any suggestions would be awesome. By the way, I do see a LC, I just want to try some suggestions before I go drag baby off to a public office again for assistance.
Re: Baby "drowns" on milk and takes her sweeeet time lol
Sounds like you are doing pretty good! A few ideas...
I too have a forceful let down and my LO unlatches and relatches a lot in the beginning. I found that if I make sure she is really on her side, with her belly facing mine, and I put a cloth over her lower shoulder, she will let the excess milk dribble out the sides of her mouth and that helps. You can also express a little into a cloth to relieve the intial surge.
I would also suggest that you might leave her to make her own eating schedule now that she's gaining weight. She might be having short sessions or being falling asleep because she's not quite hungry enough when you're feeding - breast milk takes about 2 hrs to digest. If she's only eating 5 minutes per side maybe she need to take 10 minutes on one side instead (if the milk is still flowing). The end of the feeding your milk will come slower and be easier for her to handle and there is a higher fat content in that hind milk.
Note: these are all my unprofessional opinions! If you haven't already discovered kellymom here is the link for the section on forceful letdown... https://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/fast-letdown.html
You've got a lot info in this post! Not sure where to start.
If you think that your fast letdown is making it hard for her to stay latched or hard to keep a good latch and it's negatively impacting her then you can look into some techniques to combat that. Some women pump or hand express to get let down and then put baby on once the initial flood has slowed, some women block feed, etc.
However, if she's gaining weight, diapers look good, she's content, etc. then maybe you don't have to do anything. Since she's only a week old, these things might just take care of themselves over the next few weeks. Your milk supply will regulate, she'll stop being so sleepy, and she'll get better at handling your milk flow.
If things start to deteriorate, then definitely make an appointment with the LC. The inconvenience of getting baby out of the house is well worth the long term benefits of making BFing work.
She is very happy.. she never fusses, and she is cooing and happy after each feeding if she's not already zonked out asleep, lol. My pedi said my milk must be good - due to her weight gain, and contentment after a short feeding.
Her diapers are great, yellow, seedy/curdy. Poops everytime I feed her. Very happy.
I did not know the milk flow slowed after initial let down, that might be helpful knowing, I could hand express the first few minutes.
My LO rarely nursed for more than 10 minutes at a time. I was concerned that she wasn't getting enough of the hind milk because everything I read said they needed to nurse at least 15 min to get the hind milk and she never nursed that long, but she gained weight fine and is perfectly healthy. I did keep her on one side as long as possible and then if she wasn't swallowing that often I would try the other side, but for the most part, she only nursed from one side at a feeding and still does.
DS often only nurses 5-10 mins and will almost never take more than one side. He is in around the 95th percentile across the board and is gaining plenty of weight. My mom also says one of my brothers would only ever take one side and never more than 5 mins. He was the chubbiest baby you have ever seen! Her doctor said that he let down must have been really fast and/or he was a very efficient sucker.