DD (13 weeks) had her tongue tie clipped yesterday. She's had slow gain for the last two months, about 1.5-2oz a week. She nurses mostly on one side, I barely have anything on the right side. I'm sweeping my finger under her tongue and getting her to stick her tongue out a few times a day. Struggled with refusal to nurse many times in the last few weeks, either from dairy reaction, congestion, too tired. She is extremely hard to nurse if she wants to sleep. She does not nurse for comfort. She goes after a pacifier though.
Her latch has seemed weak up until this afternoon, following the clipping. Is that normal?
I've been offering an ounce or two of pumped milk following many feedings, and she'll only take half an once, maybe 1 oz. She gained 4oz in the last two weeks. I'm offering pumped milk after most feedings now except when she falls asleep (so, late evening, middle of the night, no bottle). Tonight, I went to the store so I pumped and had DH feed her the whole bottle, 4oz. It was a fight to get her to take 2oz. We just got the Dr. Brown's bottles with the preemie nipple.
There are many times there is more milk but she's done, but she's only getting about 2-2.5 oz. Say she eats at 5am and nurses well (thankfully!), then if she awakes at 8, she doesn't want any milk! She doesn't fuss that time, but will.not.nurse. She's got to be hungry though. If she was gaining fine, I'd say, well, you just don't need it, but I believe she does need it. Why wouldn't she want to eat? She sleeps a while at night and I usually wake her to feed when I go to bed, then I wake her by 6 or so if she's not up. Last night, I set my alarm for 3:30 to feed her then in hopes that she'll get better practice with the way it feels now and strengthen her latch. That was so-so, but then at 7, it was EXTREMELY hard to get her to nurse. She'd just cry. No reflux that I know of, we resolved that early on. She seems very sensitive. We have the first of 1-4 visits with a physical therapist to hopefully resolve body tension in her head and spine that chiropractic did not resolve. She had a hematoma at birth.
I'm not sure what i"m asking for, but the things I've been wondering today is 1) why doesn't she eat more in one setting when there is more milk, either in my breast or in a bottle? I'm confused because one time, she took 5oz from a bottle (yesterday, after nursing poorly all morning, the day of tongue clipping). and 2) How long until she might start nursing longer now that her tongue has been clipped? I saw one old post that it took a couple of weeks until the latch got better. The last two feedings, it WAS a little stronger. When she nursed more weakly yesterday and this morning, she nursed LONGER but I know she took less milk than when she used to nurse for 3-4 min, nursing steadily.
I'm still off diary. Maybe it's her general upset. She cried a lot in her car seat today while doing an errand.
She was 8lbs 4oz at birth, gained very well the first 4 weeks, then slowed and is at 11lbs 9oz today. OVERALL it's fine, but that is because she took on weight so well the first month, but the last month has only been 1/2 lb a month. That is too much of a trend for me to be comfortable with. I gained 1lb a month as a newborn, DH was small but was sickly, and our 2yo gained very well the first 4 months - sometimes 12oz a week (then slowed a lot around 4-5 mo).
Any suggestions/encouragement of those who have been there. I want to eventually get off bottles and have her gain well on nursing alone.
Also, I haven't checked what is normal awake time for this age (3mo) but she is ready to go back to sleep after 45-60min and seems to sleep from her evening nap (6ish) on, with little to no awake time until the morning.
Edited by CookAMH - 7/6/11 at 9:30pm
