Jaundice/tired newborn

[osker]

E is six days old and has lost and gained and lost and gained. We were in the hospital for nearly a week (including 32 hours of labor!) and have just been home for two days.
So far she seems to enjoy sucking on nipples... but not actually eating. Sometimes she'll really latch and you can hear her guzzle and swallow a lot, but most of the time it seems that she's not really getting much out. Today a lactation consultant suggested putting her to breast for ten minutes, then pumping and giving her a bottle just to get her weight up. The first two feeds with this method went great, but the pump just doesn't seem to be doing a great job of stimulating more milk production. Each time I've pumped I've made slightly less than the time before. I'm feeding and pumping every 2 hours. Am I just not waiting long enough? She sleeps most of the time and I feel like I'm waking her to feed her and then she's just too tired to really nurse. She likes the bottle a lot, but I want to protect our nursing relationship and I would rather not be a long-time pumper if I can prevent it.
What would you do? Will she gain a little weight, lose the billirubin and perk up? Am I just impatient? Would you stick with this plan?
 

Edited by osker - 1/28/11 at 4:00pm

[PatioGardener]

sleepy babies are so hard!

Are you working on the latch with a good IBCLC? That will help. Breast compressions will help too - as will pumping after a feed and re-feeding that milk. Have you considered giving the extra milk at the breast? Jack Newman says that babies learn to breastfeed by breastfeeding, so tried to always supplement at the breast. Here is a good video of what I mean. He is just using a 5 French feeding tube (cheap - should be able t get from hospital or pharmacy.) http://www.nbci.ca/index.php?option=...lips&Itemid=13

Also, switching breasts when she isn't feeding well may help - a mom can go back and forth 4 or even 6 times in one feed, hopefully waking baby up with the switch each time.

Hang in there, and Congrats!!!

[annettemarie]

I'm going to move this out to the main forum where you'll get more traffic. Unfortunately, this can be a more common breastfeeding issue in the early days!