- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
South Florida Babies
Not Back To Birth Weight...
I posted this on the Breastfeeding board but I thought maybe you girls could help. I don't want to ask on Facebook because I know my mother-in-law would freak out that the baby is losing weight and "that's why she formula fed". >.< Please don't post about this on FB if you have me as a friend!!
My daughter is 18 days. I've been breastfeeding her since day one. At her 2 week check up she went from 8.13lbs (birth weight) to 7.15lbs. The midwife told me to keep feeding on-demand as often as she wanted to feed. So that's what I did.
Fast forward to today. We had our 3
week appt early because of her weight loss. She lost another ounce.
She's 7.14lbs now! My midwife is opposed to formula, but we need to get
her weight back up. I'm going to use a syringe feeder. It seems that my
milk is not "fatty" enough yet. I'm supposed to up my fat content in my
diet.
Do any of you have experience with syringe feeding? Also, any recommendations for organic formulas? She said soy-based would be best since it wouldn't mess up her stomach too much and it's a temporary thing. Should I bother with organic or just use Similac or Enfamil?
Thanks in advance.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Not Back To Birth Weight...
my son was born at 37 weeks and my LC said his sucker wasn't quite ready yet. So I used a syringe to feed him...but it was called finger feeding. this way he would get the right reflex to suck but we could help him out a little bit. I need to get the food into him because he had jaundice and was under the lights. I also used some formula but only for the first week. I also started to pump just to bring in more milk.
We were told that until he got back to his birth weight I had to set an alarm and try to feed him every 2-3 hours throughout the night....which was hard because some times he would want to sleep. He did eventually get a hang of things but it was a very hard few weeks.
good luck and I am sure the weight will pick up soon
you are doing a good job.
Beth
I think Beth had great advice about the pumping and timing of feedings. I would only suggest that you may want to talk to a lactation consultant or your pediatrician (or both) for ideas from them. You could also try one of the breastfeeding support groups or classes that are around (Baptist has a group that meets twice a month, and Mercy has one every week).
Tania
I never used a syringe but I did pump and give them bottles. I have to tell you after my experiences with BF and pumping I don't really believe in nipple confusion or any of that stuff. I think they don't give babies enough credit to adapt. Both my daughters gave me problems latching on so I pumped and bottle fed at first. They both then went on to latch and had no problems switching between bottle and breast. I BF DD1 for 8 months and DD2 is still getting BM both from me and bottle. I'd say my best advice is don't stress too much about how she gets the milk, just get it to her, get comfortable with how she's doing and don't worry.
I had to give DD2 formula for a few days to get rid of jaundice and I just went with regular Enfamil. I thought about doing Organic but for the 2 days I don't think it would have mattered. I don't know about giving Soy, I've heard different things about that affecting hormones in girls, but who knows. I have nothing against eating soy myself, I just don't think I'd give it to a baby unless I knew there was real cause for it.
As for the weight thing, also, does she spit up a lot? If so you might want to try eliminating dairy from your diet cause that can cause a lot of problems in some babies. DD2 was spitting up lots so I got rid of milk and she got extremely better. A friend of mine had a similar experience with dairy. Also some babies just take longer to gain the weight. Doc was concerned with mine cause neither gained by their 1 week appt, and they were both getting BM in bottles so I knew they were eating. They caught up quickly though.
((hugs)) I'm sure that is stressful, all you want to do is feed your baby.
ditto pp about being very strict on nursing every 2-3 hours. You count from the beginning of the nursing to the beginning of the next. I would try pumping 15-20 mins afterwards to help increase your milk supply.
Definitely try to work with a lacation consultant. There are private ones as well as ones in hospitals. There are ways to supplement with formula while still supporting the breastfeeding relationship and building your milk supply. A good LC will help you with that and maybe do some weigh ins. A pediatrician may start pushing formula but you can do it wisely with the help of an LC.
The local LLL can provide you some LC references as well as support.
https://www.lllmiamidade.org/LLLMDCcontactUs.html
Hang in there!
Let me preface this by saying that I am not intending to discourage you, only to give you my experiences.
My daughter had the same problem. I breast-fed for two weeks and her weight kept going down. I went to a lacation consultant and she recommended breastfeeding and then giving her formula to boost her weight because I wasn't producing enough milk. I didn't do syringe feeding, didn't even know about it, but eventually what happened was that the baby would get really frustrated by breastfeeding because the formula was so much easier. I wouldn't call it nipple confusion because she would suck, but when nothing came out (or very little) she'd cry and cry and I ended up just giving her the formula. I say continue with the breastfeeding as much as you can, but don't feel bad if you end up on formula. I took me a while to cope with it, but the important thing is that she eats and stays health.
I put my daughter on Similac isomil because I had a sample. She and I are very happy with it. I would have given her organic isomil if I could have found it somewhere, but I have never seen it.
Good Luck!
Not sure if you're still pumping along with formula, but if you are, try getting your daughter to latch on now. I found that when they're very small (less than a month) they get frustrated easily and prefer the bottle. But once they're bigger and stronger they are also calmer when they latch on and give it more of a chance. Both my daughters didn't do well with breastfeeding until they were older. It's like they are in desperate eat mode and once they get older they calm down and give it more of a chance.