Hi all,
I just found this forum a fortnight ago, and have been all over it to find answers to my many questions!
A little background:
10 week son, born 27/09 at 40w1d at 2.14 kg, (that's abt 4.7 lbs)...no iugr, docs said constitutionally small baby ( me n DH are 5 feet odd). Born via c section, latch established on day 3, gave formula even when I nursed due to his low birth weight. A weight check this friday at 10w1d showed a weight of 4 kg (about8.8 lbs). I put in a lot of effort, cluster fed for HOURS in the first few weeks ( against everything my family said - "you have low supply/you are starving the baby/give formula).
We cloth diaper and change at every pee and he has at least 15 wet diapers a day. Poop was once every 3-4 days the first month and half and now regularized to once a day.
DS is a catnapper. He takes 20-40 min naps. Mostly 20. My uncle who is an OB/GYN thinks its because DS "snacks" and hence catnaps. Our feeds are already 1 hr +. I can hear DS swallow after the first couple mins of suckling (he has a shallow latch, lipstick shaped nipple) but the swallowing is after increasing number of sucks. I have been trying to get DS to open his mouth wider (he barely opens it half inch) hoping that deeper latch = more efficient milk transfer. I had huge doubts the first few weeks on low supply as DS would fuss every evening Nytime between 4 pm to 7 pm (after reading kellymom I figured that I have adequate supply) and that DS fusses mainly due to being over tired.
At nit he sleeps mainly in a 3-2-1 hour cycle (3 hrs then 1 hr nursing then 2 hrs then 1 hr etc) and that's abt it.. Rarely will he sleep a couple more hours.
I wold have gotten him to sleep 2-2.5 hrs in the afetrnoon maybe a max of 3 times in the last 8 weeks. He is also a hyperactive child, impatient on the boob (eg when I switch sides using cross cradle hold) with short bursts of happy time. As he snacks he feeds literally all day, anywhere between 15 mins -1 hour between nursings.
Now, my questions:
1. Feeding: what am I doing wrong? How do I get DS to be an efficient nurser, take a proper feed and sleep/nap at least 2hrs? And also feed for lessor time!
2. sleep: DS also ONLY sleeps on nursing.. So I have to nurse to put him down.. I have tried everything - rock/shush/pat/sway etc
3. Latch: I have seen an LC and we've tried getting DS to open wider. He does that sometimes and hen during the feed slips back to grabbing mostly the nipple. This has resulted in sore nipples!
All of the above has resulted in NO sleep for me for the last 10 weeks and I am losing it!
To the point that I now find it very difficult to fall asleep with the fear tht he could wake up any moment!
Help!! I go back to work in a week and at this rate can never leave him with anyone (have not been able to get a free hour to myself outside the house in the last 10 weeks!) and am freaking out!
Sorry for the long post but wanted to give all the background so it's easy to understand.
TIA!