Help! 4 day old sleepy jaundiced baby

[Darlingricki74]

My milk is coming in! this didn't really happen with Hunter, so I'm hoping it means I'm making more milk this time!

My issue is sleepy jaundiced baby. She latches on great...takes two sucks and falls asleep. I can mess with her a bit, talking and rubbing her and get her to stay awake a few minutes, but not long. I let her stay on until she relaxes and lets it slip out of her mouth and then burp. And she wakes up while I'm burping her and starts rooting and sucking at her hands like she's starving, so I put her back on the boob(should I put her back on the same one or switch here, at this point she's had 5-10 minutes on) she latches on great, sucks a few times...and falls back asleep.

Do I just keep doing that, wake her and put her back on as long as she's acting hungry and willing to latch on? Seriously I think it would be off and on for hours sometimes if I did that! Do I switch sides or keep her on one? Til it's drained? Will I know when it's drained? So far after she's nursed on one it seems softer, but it still lumpy...

Any advice would be great, I have been supplementing with formula, a half ounce after breastfeeding. She's pretty jaundiced(had a dr appt today and they had the lab run a blood test and she was borderline, even a tiny bit higher and I would have had to take her back to the hospital for the light therapy thing. So I don't want that to get worse, but the doctor did encourage me that once my milk came in I could quit supplementing. I'm going to try not supplementing tonight and just keeping good track of wet/poopy diapers to gauge that she's getting enough. I just really don't know what I'm doing! I just can't seem to get her satisfied, but I don't know if it's because she's not getting enough because there isn't enough there, or if she's just falling asleep too quickly. Every time I think she's satisfied and she's peacefully sleeping, she wakes in 10-20 minutes acting hungry again.
She's just so tiny, I worry she'll lose more weight-she is up from leaving the hospital, she was born at 5lbs 15oz, left the hospital at 5lbs 4oz, and today she weighed 5lbs 9oz(but I have been supplementing).

[crabmomma]

I had this problem too! When my daughter was first born, she latched great, but would fall asleep right away. She started to lose weight so I began supplementing with formula, but the longer I did, the less my milk came. I ended up pumping manually and feeding her with a large medicine dropper. (After receiving lots of advice NOT to use a bottle because of the possible confusion.) Well, I ended up having plenty of milk, but she wasn't getting enough with the dropper so we ended up using a bottle anyway. She was SO hungry! Several days went by with her eating as much as she wanted with the bottle, and me always offering the breast before and after. It was easier than I though it would be to transition her back to the breast. This might not work for everyone, but it worked for us.

[katelove]

Do you undress her when she is feeding? Keeping her skin to skin and a tiny bit on the cool side may help her stay awake.

I would keep putting her on the same side if she's only been on for 5-10 mins but if she seems like she's not getting anything then you could swap at that point. Are you in a position to be able to keep going on and off for as long as she wants too? If so, I would do that even if it means you are feeding for an hour or so.

An alternative to bottle/formula supplementing is expressing and cup feeding. After she has sucked as much as you can get her to, hand express and feed her from a cup.

The above are the things I try first when I am looking after mums and babies with the challenges you described.

All the best. I hope things start to improve soon.

[ewe+lamb]

I'm sorry you're having a hard time - get as much daylight to her as possible, strip her down to nappy and put her right infront of the window as much as possible - that is really the best thing for jaundiced babies - it works a treat, for the sleepyness - when you think she's going to drop off try some breast compression to squirt the milk into her which forces her to wake up and swallow see this link www.drjacknewman.com, make sure that your rooms are not too warm between 18 and 20 degrees tops so that the heat doesn't make her nod off. Hope this helps.

[Heba]

Yes yes yes - breast compressions, skin-to-skin, wet cloth, continuous unrestricted access to the breast, and also consider switch nursing (whenever she falls asleep, swap sides - back and forth as often as you need to - in extreme cases this can be very often).

Hang in there - this too shall pass! In the meantime, can you just snuggle up with your baby - in bed, on the sofa - and have someone else look after you and take care of *essential* things around the house, at least for the next few days?

Oh, also, if you decide that you need to continue supplementing but don't want to use formula, you might consider expressing and feeding a breastmilk top-up. This will also help with the establishment of a good milk supply. Oh, hang on, I see that has already been suggested.

Best wishes
Heba

[ClaudiaTh]

Originally Posted by ewe+lamb

I'm sorry you're having a hard time - get as much daylight to her as possible, strip her down to nappy and put her right infront of the window as much as possible - that is really the best thing for jaundiced babies - it works a treat, for the sleepyness - when you think she's going to drop off try some breast compression to squirt the milk into her which forces her to wake up and swallow see this link www.drjacknewman.com, make sure that your rooms are not too warm between 18 and 20 degrees tops so that the heat doesn't make her nod off. Hope this helps.

[bubbamummy]

Im kind of in the same boat. My daughter is 8 days old and has already had phototherapy while we were in the hospital. She is pretty sleepy. In the hospital they had me pump milk and then finger feed via an SNS after every nursing session. I would nurse her, then feed her 15cc of expressed milk via the SNS and then she went under the lights again. They wanted me to do this until my milk was fully 'in' and she was wetting/pooping enough.

She is now peeing a ton and pooping too, but each nursing session is an uphill battle to get her to eat. She NEVER wakes on her own to eat. I wake her every 2-2.5 hrs and we start the 20 minute wake up process, I change her diaper and use a cold cold to clean her (yes...It sounds mean I know!) then I attempt to nurse her, if she doesnt stay awake its back to the changing table for clothes to come off, then we try again. I blow on her head, rub her back, tickle her feet, talk to her and I can usually get her to suck for 5 mins total. I was worried but my lactation consultant said she swallowed after every suck where as some babies have to 'suck, suck, suck-SWALLOW' Molly does 'suck, SWALLOW, suck, SWALLOW' so she said that 5 minutes was probably plently esp. as she was wetting/pooping so much.

It is hard and very tiring-i feel your pain. Hang in there, as that jaundice passes baby will be more wakeful

[Darlingricki74]

Thanks for the tips. My milk is coming in better and things are already improving. Last night I didn't supplement all night, she was nursing a ton, she was only sleeping in 10-20 minute increments before waking up rooting and hungry because I couldn't keep her awake long enough to get full. But I just nursed whenever she wanted until finally about 6:30 am I just HAD to get some sleep, both my breasts were totally soft and drained from nursing so much, and I broke down and gave her 1/2 oz of formula. She sucked it down like she was starving, and then fell asleep for 2.5 hours!

I've been nursing her all day as much as she wants, but she's starting to actually get more from my breasts quickly, she might only nurse for 10 minutes but I can hear her swallowing a lot and then she sleeps for 2 hours! So I'm feeling much more rested. That 1/2 oz of formula is the only supplement she's had in the past 24 hours. She's had 3 poopy diapers(yellowish and seedy looking) and 6 or 7 wet ones.

I'm going to try not to supplement tonight, but if she nurses until my breasts feel soft and empty and still acts like she's starving, I can live with 1/2 oz of formula supplement so she gets full and we both get at least one stretch of a few hours decent rest.

I have PCOS, and never produced nearly enough breastmilk to feed my son(though he had been a NICU baby, and then wouldn't latch, and I ended up just pumping and bottle feeding, I was only able to pump and collect enough milk to give him 1 to 1.5 bottles a day, the rest was formula) so I wasn't expecting to be able to produce 100% of her needs through bm, I fully expected to be formula feeding mostly and supplementing with bm! So I am thrilled with how it is going so far, I was praying I'd be able to give her at least 50% bm, so I am fine with a tiny bit of formula(though I'm still hoping my supply keeps increasing and I'm able to give her 100% bm)!

[Heba]

Yay! Really glad things are getting better.

[help]

I am in the exact same situation. I have a four day old who is doing this. I was going to post some of these questions that you just did. My milk hasn't completely come in yet, they're making me go back to the hospital tomorrow because she's very close to losing 10% of her initial weight. If so, I'll have to do something different.

The doctors have also mentioned that I might have PCOS. I have very few symptoms, but they mainly thought I did when I was in high school. How bad is your PCOS? Does anyone know of anything that can be given for PCOS if milk doesn't ever come in properly? I will look for an answer on the forums, but I may post it as a question if I can't find it.