Hi ladies.
I have a 2-and-a-half week old, born at 35 weeks 6 days(so technically late preterm).
We're just hitting a couple of bumps while she tries to establish a feeding pattern, wondering if anybody might have some advice for me.
Just for some background in case it matters-the consultants in the hospital had me pumping after every feeding and offering her my expressed milk every time, again I suppose because she was early and they were looking to protect my supply. She did go down in weight by 10 percent by day four, but that day my milk came in and she began gaining immediately. She very rarely took the expressed milk, so I began freezing it, and weaning from the pumping as soon as was advised, since I was really producing far more than I needed.
I had maybe 4 days of comfort after engorgement had passed, but then she began changing her pattern. She started eating very little in the morning and afternoon, with 2 or more feedings lasting 10 minutes or even less, even with me doing breast compressions. But then she'd cluster feed like crazy in the evenings and sometimes overnight. We saw her ped on Monday and she is exceeding weight gain expectations(at 2 weeks she was 8 oz up over her birth weight) and she pees and poops like crazy, so I know she is getting plenty of milk. But when she eats so little during the day, I am starting to have engorgement problems again, and even today-when she essentially has cluster fed the entire day, I have been uncomfortable all day.
Is it just my body still needing to adjust? I assume somehow my body will sort it out and be able to adjust even to such a varied feeding schedule? I am quite hesitant to pump for relief-for one, I don't want to increase my supply, and also with all the initial pumping, I have close to 50 oz in my freezer and am running out of storage space. Thank you for reading and for any suggestions!!!
I have a 2-and-a-half week old, born at 35 weeks 6 days(so technically late preterm).
We're just hitting a couple of bumps while she tries to establish a feeding pattern, wondering if anybody might have some advice for me.
Just for some background in case it matters-the consultants in the hospital had me pumping after every feeding and offering her my expressed milk every time, again I suppose because she was early and they were looking to protect my supply. She did go down in weight by 10 percent by day four, but that day my milk came in and she began gaining immediately. She very rarely took the expressed milk, so I began freezing it, and weaning from the pumping as soon as was advised, since I was really producing far more than I needed.
I had maybe 4 days of comfort after engorgement had passed, but then she began changing her pattern. She started eating very little in the morning and afternoon, with 2 or more feedings lasting 10 minutes or even less, even with me doing breast compressions. But then she'd cluster feed like crazy in the evenings and sometimes overnight. We saw her ped on Monday and she is exceeding weight gain expectations(at 2 weeks she was 8 oz up over her birth weight) and she pees and poops like crazy, so I know she is getting plenty of milk. But when she eats so little during the day, I am starting to have engorgement problems again, and even today-when she essentially has cluster fed the entire day, I have been uncomfortable all day.
Is it just my body still needing to adjust? I assume somehow my body will sort it out and be able to adjust even to such a varied feeding schedule? I am quite hesitant to pump for relief-for one, I don't want to increase my supply, and also with all the initial pumping, I have close to 50 oz in my freezer and am running out of storage space. Thank you for reading and for any suggestions!!!
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