She can latch, now is it long enough?

[cdmommie]

The baby is 5 days old. I still have a little trouble getting the baby to latch, but it's getting much better. The lactation consultant told me to keep her on for at least 20 minutes, but she gets fussy in the middle and I'm only getting about 15 minutes at each feeding and feeding every 3 hours. Is this enough? She has had 5 wet diapers and 4 dirty diapers since 7pm last night (it's 11:30am now). This is much better than before, I think because I am massaging my breast while she eats, but it's not any longer. Is it okay? Also: I am only doing one side at a feeding because she won't latch to the second side after the first one is already going.

[sadean]

Yes, I think 15 minutes is fine. LCs talk in generalities and frankly I cannot imagine a newborn that actually ate for a full 20 minutes. I was lucky to get mine to stay on for 10 minutes at a go in the beginning! Mine also fell into a pattern of every 3 hours pretty quickly and by 8 weeks were every 3-4 hours.

I personally think it is more important to look at pee/poop output and number of feeds over a 24 hour period than length of individual feeds. 8 feeds in a 24 hour period is on the lower side of normal, but it is normal. 9 dirty diapers in a 12 hour period sounds like good output to me.

And I would listen for swallowing sounds, though not all babies seem to make them (my first did, my second and third really did not make much noise when swallowing). And if she doesn't eat enough in that 10 minutes, she will likely come back for more

[phathui5]

As long as she's having enough wet and dirty diapers, I wouldn't stress out about pushing her to eat for 20 minutes. My youngest (5 weeks) doesn't nurse for that long at a session except for in the evening. The rest of the day he goes somewhere from five to fifteen minutes.