Distracted baby=low milk supply and low weight gain!

[@llli*laura23rn]

I need help. My little guy is almost 5 months old now, and we have been battling his distractibility for nearly 2 months now. And now, he's so physically active, that I can't hardly keep him still. It has affected my milk supply and also his weight gain.

Here are some of his stats:
Birth 9lbs 2oz...dropped to 8lbs 3oz
1 month: 10lbs 3 oz
2 month: 11lbs 11oz
4 month: 14lbs 2oz
And a few days shy of 5 months: 14lbs 7oz
--Which amounts to 5 oz in a month.

I feed on demand (which amounts to every 2-3 hours during the day, and while he was doing a 6-8 hour stretch at night, he's back to one 4-5 hour stretch, which is fine). He still eats about 8 times per day, but sometimes for only 2-3 minutes (not that he's ever been a long nurser, but this seems kind of extreme--and he's definitely not emptying the breast . Sometimes I have luck in a dark, quiet room. But during the day, with a 4 year old brother, that's just not always possible. Our best feedings are definitely our nighttime ones (around 8p, 11p when I feed him while he sleeps, and whenever he wakes up after that). There is no way I can squeeze in more night feedings, I'm a NICU nurse, and I'm barely feeling like I can function well as it is, and my little patients need me to be firing on all cylinders lol.

At work, I pump 4 x per 12 hour shift...and originally he was eating about 12 oz while I was gone (and still getting 4 additional feeds from me before/after, I was even setting an alarm and waking to feed him around 3 am). With his eating behavior, my output dropped to 9-10oz, which isn't enough for him (especially with his lack of weight gain). I did 2 courses of Reglan, which helped immensely, but, of course, you can't stay on that long term. Now, I'm taking a very low dose of Domperidone, which is very effective, but, while I will if I have to, I don't want to stay on meds forever.

I need him to eat better. What else can I do to encourage him to eat better? Is this just a phase that will pass eventually (2 months is a long time, and if he's like DS1, he's just going to get crazier lol)?

[@llli*aprilsmagic]

Can you dream feed him?

[@llli*phi]

Nursing my baby while carrying him has always helped us. I think the motion calms him enough to stay focused. I still put him in the Ergo to nurse when we're out in a distraction-rich environment (he's 17 months now).

[@llli*laura23rn]

I always do a feeding when I go to bed...around 11pm, which is a dream feed. He doesn't wake up for it. And in the middle of the night, he usually wakes up just enough that it wakes me and I feed him then as well. But, those night feedings are usually great and those are the only times he will comfort nurse as well.

phi-I would LOVE to nurse in the Ergo, but somehow I have yet to figure it out. Maybe its my stupid bigger boobs. I also can't make the cradle hold work for us either (just the cross cradle). Got any tips on either?

[@llli*phi]

Hmmm... I have relatively small breasts, so I don't have any good tips for Ergo nursing with large breasts. Hopefully someone else around here has more experience with that. Even with small breasts though, it took a lot of practice. I need to drop him low enough to latch. I put the hood up to keep his attention focused on nursing. Then I pull out a boob and let him latch. I find it helps to hold my arms around him a bit to keep him stable. It took a while playing around with positioning before we got comfortable with it.

Do you have a wrap? That might be something to try too. Some people seem to have more luck with those, but neither my son nor I ever liked the Moby much.

I ditched trying to get named holds down when my baby was about a week old and just held him in a way that felt natural for both of us. The holds pushed on us by LCs and nurses at the hospital just didn't work well for us so we came up with our own. This too took a while to figure out. We periodically reposition as he gets older and outgrows certain positioning.