mini breast feeding.... long sessions!

[sking]

I am desperate to get some answers about a terrible pattern in my baby's breastfeeding. She is 7 weeks old and was born one week before her due date via induction. Our problem goes as follows: My baby wakes up from her nap nurses for no more than 5 min. and goes to sleep, she sleeps for ten minutes or so, wakes up and nurses for another short time and goes right back to sleep. She continues this pattern for three or four times during one feeding (three hour period). Because of overproduction issues (milk squirting out, still feeling engorged..etc), I am only nursing one breast every three hours. At the end, she only gets to sleep for 30-40 minutes tops at a time. This is very fatiguing to me. I never get to rest while she is sleeping. Is there anything I can do? Is she going to grow out of it and nurse one-long-stretch per feeding? (and hopefully sleep for a little longer?)

I have looked in baby developmental books, breast feeding books, sleeping books, etc. I can not find any answers.

[Sassafras]

bump

[Nurseliz]

Yikes, how on earth do you even have the energy to type an email?
I bet you are beyond exhausted.
You HAVE to retrain her. She is using you to pacify to sleep. Feeding this way will do several things:
1. Make you a crazy person
2. Not allow her to gain weight because she never gets the hindmilk
3. Cause you to have oversupply due to overstimulation (already there)
4. Not allow her to sleep good, babies need REM sleep too.

So what do you do?
1. Start by using the long stretch of 30 minutes and make her go at least and hour. Rock her, distract her but do not feed her.
2. At one hour, feed her for 4-5 minutes, take her off while she is actively sucking and burp her, change her diaper, make her really mad, really really mad (undress, massage, cool washcloth), then calm her and allow her to nurse again. Do this over and over until you achieve AT LEAST a 15 minute feeding. If you are unable to keep her awake, then enlist the help of a friend or family member.
3. After at least a 15 minute successful feeding, DO NOT feed her again in 5 minutes if she wakes, wait another hour.But I am guessing, if you do the feed properly, she will obtain the hindmilk and sleep for 2-3 hours because it takes longer to digest than watery foremilk.
If you are unable to make her do at least a 15 minute feeding then you need an appointment with a lactation consultant who can walk you through this process.
It may take a day or two to get her in a 2-3 hour feeding schedule but it will happen if you work to retrain her.
Liz Pevytoe, RN, IBCLC
www.askthelactationconsultant.com