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Yeah, I feel like the eat-for-45-minutes-every-2-hours was pretty standard for the first couple of weeks, and occasionally DS would cluster feed and just eat all the time for a couple hours. We gave DS a bottle of pumped milk 1-2 times a day so that I could get a break, and that helped. Other than that, I kind of just spent my entire day on the couch in front of 4 seasons straight of Friday Night Lights, with a baby attached to my boob.
Yeah, at that age it is pretty normal. They do get better at draining the breast, just give it time.
Yes my daughter did this too. We eased off it slowly. I started getting her to cluster feed in the evenings, offering nursing more often than she was asking. And I also started having her sleep in a swing instead of bassinet, so when she'd wake up and had eaten and eaten and eaten, I'd start the swing and it'd help her drift back to sleep. It didn't take too long, just a couple days before she started cluster feeding in the evening and 4 am wake up became more like 30-45 min with the diaper change.
I'm hesitant to comment b/c I can only speak from my experience and don't want to give misleading info... but when the hours-long marathons happened with DS (not cluster feeding, which is normal and different than staying at the breast for three hours in one sitting), my lactation consultant told me he was soothing himself at that point and was not actually eating. Would you be able to talk with a lactation specialist?
It is called cluster feeding, it's completely normal, and there is a good reason for it. Baby is suckling so much in order to bombard your body with signals to ramp up milk production. Your milk supply isn't fully established until 3 months, so that first 3 months baby is working hard to get that supply established. Try not to discourage it, it's good for you!
Just want to add that just because it's normal doesn't mean it doesn't kind of suck (pun intended) and get really exhausting and frustrating at times. It gets better, I promise!
I've read a few books and spoken with a variety of lactation consultants, and after admitting that I once nursed my daughter for an hour, I was told time and again that that's very unusual for a baby to actually feed that entire time. Your baby may be nursing out of comfort but not actually taking milk the entire time.
My baby is 3.5 weeks old and I nurse her on demand, and likely will continue to do so for as long as it's comfortable.
What happens during the marathon feeding when you break the latch and try to comfort her in other ways?
DS would sometimes eat for up to 40 minutes at a time, but anything longer than that and he wasn't eating anything, just sucking for comfort or sleeping. If you are comfortable, you can try a pacifier. It helps when they want to suck for comfort and you want to sleep!! It didn't work with DS until about 4 months, but now it's a life saver. If not, try to break the latch and soothe other ways.
It is definitely normal to clusterfeed, both to establish a good supply and if he's working on a growth spurt (which seems like every other week!) You can always ask a lactation consultant or your pediatrician.
It does get better. By 2 months DS could do a full feeding in well under 20 minutes and by 4 months he was done in under 10 minutes.
When I break the latch she cries and after about 20 minutes of trying to soothe her (usually allowing her to suck on my finger does the trick - my lactation consultant clued me in on that one) if she's still crying I'll make sure her diaper is clean and then offer the other breast. She falls asleep, pops herself off and then after 30-60 seconds is crying for the other breast again. It's exhausting.
It is exhausting but it does get better. I produce like 3x more milk in the morning than I do in the evening. I wonder if you pumped in the morning and had your husband give her a bottle of expressed milk in the evening in addition to trying to get her to cluster nurse before bed if that might help with the long 4 am wake up.
I got mastitis around 2 weeks and was soo exhausted so that's why we started this routine with my husband giving a bottle of pumped mlk in the evening but it worked really well so we kept that routine for awhile.
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Annaliese is 2 weeks old and has gotten into this routine where she feeds for 45 minutes every 2 hours during the day and then at 4am she wakes up and eats until 7am. It is making me crazy. Did anyone else go through this?