BF btdt moms--will the constant feedings ever end??
Jenna is over 6 wks old. Since birth she has cluster fed every evening until bed time. I am talking hours on end of nursing with short breaks and i mean 10 minutes here and there.i AM getting burned out from this every single day. She rarely goes 2 hours even in morning or afternoon without eating unless she's having a long nap. She hardly sleeps from late afternoon until bed time which is 10pm until 1am (yes she ate 9 hours straight until 1am!! last night). I am thoroughly exhausted. She was sleeping 5-6 hours but last night after the constant feedings until 1am only slept until 5am. and was up for 45 min eating again.I feel like i am losing it. She is so cranky too from late afternoon until bed. Any suggestions? Nurse at drs office said its all normal for a 6 wk old that she just wants to be close to me and nurse. Pacifier only works for a few minutes here and there. She is gaining weight fast so she's getting more than enough. So tired!! I don't think i could pump enough bottles for this baby at night. Anyone else going through this?
You clearly have an ample milk supply, and one thing you MIGHT try, if you're comfortable with it, is going to one sided nursing per feeding. If she unlatches and then wants more ... put her back on the same breast (during evening cluster feeds you might say, I'll use this breast for one or two hours and then switch breasts for the next 1-2 hours). Moms who have a big supply sometimes find that their babies get full (by volume) on the "thinner" lower fat milk found at the beginning of a feeding. The higher fat milk comes nearer the end of the feeding (it's not after a certain amount of time ... it's a gradual change during the feeding). But switching breasts is like going to another sink in the house and turning on the hot faucet ... and getting cold water again (lower fat milk) whereas returning to the faucet where you'd just gotten hot water (higher fat milk) makes the hot water (high fat milk) immediately available.
The higher fat milk helps baby to be satiated longer periods of time. Feeding one breast per feeding is essentially a loose block feeding schedule.
Also, I don't know how you're feeding baby now. Some docs and nurses still advise mom to feed baby from one breast for a set period of time and then switch breasts for a set period of time. But in reality, "finish the first breast first" is the best advice. Once baby has finished the first breast, you can then offer the second breast which baby may or may not take. If you adopt the loose block feeding idea, you're simply putting baby back on the first breast if she still wants to eat more. The breast is never empty ... the flow just may be slower (which some babies are irritated by). But it's not empty. There is still milk for baby ... and while the volume / flow is less, it's higher in fat!
For me the cluster feeding does let up but not until after 2-3 months ... and my 2nd baby cluster fed in the evening for longer than that, but she had reflux an it was comforting to her.
So it does get better ... but it's not like baby should go 6 hours between feedings or anything either.
At 6 weeks, you're really still in the early breastfeeding days and what you describe is pretty normal. as baby starts to come out of the "fussy" stage (around 12 weeks - also considered the end of the 4th trimester if you subscribe to that theory), is when many moms start to feel a bit more routine with the feedings.
HTH
I do on-demand feeding so it is a little different for me.
With all 3 of my kids, their normal was to eat every 2 hours.