Intro & question

[@llli*paisleybaby]

Hello mommies,
My daughter was born 8 days ago at 36 weeks, 6 days. She's my second preemie baby. My first was 35 and I was never given the opportunity to breast feed her. This time I'm determind to do this. However we have already hit a few humps.
Hence my questions.
first we started out with a solid latch. Then they took paisley to do a car seat test. During this test they gave baby a passi. She came back totally confused. This happened twice as she failed her first test.
She will still latch on but not as effectively as her first few feedings. How can I re-establish a good latch?
Second she fights the breast. She is hungry, crying (really just whining as her cry is wimpy) and when she's offered the breast, she fights it. Will sway her mouth open back and forth over the nipple but won't latch on for a solid 6 min. Just cries and won't accept the nipple.
Our last issue is her sleep patterns vs her eating. This kid can sleep easily for 4hrs at a time. It's hard to wake her and I'm worried aboit her intake. Methods to wake her or length of time she should feed to equal 1.5oz?? That's what ped said she should be eating..
Thanks in advance

[@llli*mommal]

Forget how baby 's latch looks for a moment, and tell us how it feels. Is it comfortable for you? A latch that feels good usually is good, even if it looks wonky.

When baby is having trouble latching on, and is doing that frantic, head-bobbing, won't-close-her-mouth thing, there are a few things you can try, including:
- Try to latch her on before her hunger signs escalate into crying. Crying is a late sign of hunger, and babies who are crying are sometimes too frantic to do anything but cry.
- If baby reaches the frantic stage, try offering her your pinky finger to suck, with nail held down towards baby's tongue. A few seconds of sucking on a finger sometimes reminds baby that the answer to her problem is sucking, and calms her enough to enable a repeated latch attempt.
- Try expressing a few drops of milk onto the surface of the nipple before latching baby on. You can also drip some on from an eyedropper or something. The instant reward can sometimes encourage a baby to get down to business a bit faster.
- Keep your environment calm, and the lights dim. Newborns can easily get overstimulated, and that can make it harder for them to focus on latching.

Sleepy babies are a challenge. Methods for waking a dozy kid:
- Keep lights dim to encourage baby to keep her eyes open (newborns will close their eyes in response to bright lights).
- Keep baby somewhat cool by stripping her down to a single light layer when it's time to nurse. A fan blowing in the room can also help.
- Annoy baby by rubbing against the grain of her hair or the soles of her feet using your hand or a cool, damp washcloth.
- If baby falls asleep while nursing, try switch nursing. When suckling slows, remove her from the breast, burp her or change her diaper, and switch her to the other side. Repeat the process as many times as necessary, until baby will no longer wake.
- Use breast compressions while nursing to speed milk flow to the baby.

There is no length of time that is equivalent to 1.5 oz- not for every baby. Feeding speed/efficiency varies widely even among newborns, with some babies getting full meals in as little as 5 minutes and others taking closer to an hour. The best gauge of milk intake is diaper output: as long as baby produces adequate wet/poopy diapers and the stools are adequate in size, she's getting enough milk. If diaper output is borderline, then nurse more and contact a lactation consultant, preferably an IBCLC, for a hands-on, professional assessment.