Weight gain and number of feeds

[scarebear]

Hi, ladies, I've found all of your advice SO helpful over the last 7 weeks! For that, thank you!! I have a specific Q that I haven't seen discussed yet.

LO is slow to gain weight. She is EBF and had regained her birthweight (7, 13) by 2 weeks. At her 1 month pedi said not to feed on demand yet, continue to wake her at 3 hours during the day, because she was only up 14oz from birthweight. LO consistently sleeps 6-8 hours at a stretch at night, and because of that I struggle to get her to 7 feeds a day. Once I let her dictate and she went 4 hours between feeds during the day and only ate 5 times that day.

I saw a LC at week 2 and latch is great. We stopped by the hospital's breastfeeding group and did a weighted feed: LO took in 3.5 oz. She has 5-6 heavily wet diapers a day and she's happy and content. But she's only up another 7 oz in the 2 weeks since her 1 month. According to KellyMom this is under the average gain for EBF baby.

I want my kiddo to gain at a healthy rate, and I don't want to worry unnecessarily if she's meant to be a little thing. Should I be forcing the boob on her? Any insight?

Thanks for helping a newbie out!

[theresat858]

If she is taking 3.5 ounces per feed (though one measurement doesn't necessarily mean a pattern; sometimes babies will take more or less, and only by measuring for a few 24 hour periods can you get a reliable idea), then 7 feedings/day should be ok. But her gain is on the low end, and I would really encourage you to nurse her at least every 3 hours during the day if you don't want to wake her at night for feeding. I would maybe even wake after a 4 hour stretch at night.

[saraml13]

You say you don't want to force her to nurse. How does she react if you offer more often during the day?

[scarebear]

Feb 17, 2015 18:41:22 GMT -5 saraml13 said:

You say you don't want to force her to nurse. How does she react if you offer more often during the day?

Great q...she eats, but it's an unenthusiastic few gulps and then back to napping. I can nag her to stay awake and drink more but it's no where near a "normal" feeding for her. Maybe this is better than nothing at all.

[packerup]

This sounds so much like my son. He lost 9% of his weight in the hospital, then gained VERY slowly. It took him 3 weeks to get back to his birthweight, after weekly weigh-ins and BM supplementing. At 1 month, he was up 8 oz from his birthweight. Between 1 and 2 months, he gained 2.5 lbs. I was so excited and proud, because I was basically being told before that that I wasn't doing a good enough job BFing (or so it felt like). He's 3.5 months old now and probably up another 2.5 lbs since his 2 month appt.

He has always been a good sleeper, just like your daughter. He has a 6 hour stretch of sleep most nights, and he often eats every 4 hours (not 2-3, like it sounds like is the norm) since he was born. I was told to feed him every 2 hours during the day, but he took at least 1 hour to feed, so eating every 2 hours meant less than an hour of sleep each time....which just didn't seem like enough. He started gaining very slowly, but has picked up speed since them. I've just kind of accepted that he's not going to eat as often, but he's probably eating more at a time. Sorry I'm not much help, but I just wanted to let you know you're not alone.

[scarebear]

Thank you for the responses. We went back to the breastfeeding group today and LO took in 4 oz. and gained 3 oz. in the last 6 days. My plan going forward is to continue to wake her during the day and offer the boob more frequently and see if that results in a greater gain. Thanks again!