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Briefly the most important:
For a newborn (in the first 28 days of life) it is completely natural to ask for the breast very often: you need to feed him “at the first squeak.”
After a month, you can begin to regulate the frequency of feedings and gradually adjust them to your daily routine. After 6 months, feeding “on demand” during the day is not at all necessary.
There are normal conditions when babies require breastfeeding very often: growth spurt (lactation crisis) and evening fatigue. During these periods, the baby needs more frequent feedings, and it is better to put everything aside and feed the baby as much as he wants.
Newborn
In the first days of life, an active and demanding baby who cries every 1.5-2 hours can be a difficult test for a mother who is tired after childbirth, however, he has an advantage over the “sleepyhead”. The fact is that the more the baby suckles, the faster the milk will come, and the more there will be.
Immediately after birth, it is normal for a baby to lose weight rather than gain it, but the loss should not be too great. A baby with a good appetite will be discharged from the hospital with minimal weight loss.
Therefore, in the first weeks of life, let the baby eat as often and for as long as he likes, because his stomach immediately after birth can only hold 5-10 ml of milk, and the baby needs frequent feedings to get the essential drops of colostrum.
After a month
It happens that mothers continue to put the baby to the breast “at the first squeak” even after a month. It would seem that the number of feedings should decrease, but it does not become easier for the mother: she has to feed as often as in the first weeks of the child’s life.
From 1.5 months, it is useful to let the child understand that sucking the breast is not the only pleasant activity. So, for example, a 7-week-old baby is already able to have fun with a toy for some time or wait out changing clothes without much difficulty. Gradually, you can train the child’s endurance by postponing emergency breastfeeding for a couple of minutes, for five minutes, distracting him.
Over time, the mother notices that the child requires the breast not from hunger, but simply to feel comfort and security. For such a baby, this is a vital necessity. But it happens that these feedings “for fun” cause a lot of trouble for the mother.
If you continue to feed a six-month-old baby “on demand”, the mother will not be able to do anything else, but the fact is that it is no longer necessary to feed such a child “on demand”. At six months, it is better for a child to breastfeed “at first squeak” only at night, and during the day try to adhere to a certain rhythm.
It’s good when feedings are “tied” to normal daily rituals. It is worth feeding your child milk after he has eaten other foods at the usual time, after waking up, before bed, before or after a walk.
However, there are times when the frequent demands of an older child do not need to be resisted. For example, these are growth spurts at 3 and 6 weeks, as well as at 3 and 6 months, when mothers note that the baby begins to latch on to the breast much more often, the breasts feel “empty,” and the child becomes capricious and restless.
The only way to calmly survive these periods is to put everything aside and feed the baby as if he were a newborn - up to 20 times a day. Usually this condition goes away within 3-7 days, and the feeding rhythm becomes the same, or changes slightly, but remains regular.
In addition, most babies experience an irresistible urge to suck in the evening. From about 5 to 9 pm, the child can not tear himself away from the breast and not let go of his mother for a second.
It is believed that in this way the baby not only copes with his own fatigue during the day and an abundance of new impressions, but also “orders” from the mother’s body the required amount of milk for tomorrow. After all, it is known that the more milk a baby sucks today, the more it will appear tomorrow.
So, don't worry about the fact that sometimes you have to “follow your baby's lead” and feed him often. These are temporary deviations, and gradually the baby will get used to the feeding regime that is convenient for you.
What to do if your baby constantly demands the breast
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Many mothers strive to properly organize breastfeeding. But sometimes it happens that a child often asks for breast milk - this raises alarming questions. Mothers feel literally “attached” to their babies. This affects at night, when sleep is limited due to frequent feeding.
Before starting an intensive search for solutions, it is worth deciding on the reasons that caused this. In most cases, the decision is made that there is not enough milk. The fact that the child began to eat more often is not unusual, since there are periods of intensive development of the baby.
There are various reasons why there is a need for frequent feeding of the baby:
Starting from the first month, the volume of lactation is still insufficient, and the baby can get tired quickly. When slightly saturated, the baby leaves the breast and falls asleep. With rapid digestion of milk, especially when feeding occurs in small doses, the baby again feels hungry and tries to give signs to be fed.
If the baby is under two months old and has frequent feedings, this is normal. Every day the baby gets stronger and begins to drink more milk. When the lactation volume reaches its limit, the baby begins to experience hunger during development.
When the baby reaches the second or third month, a large number of children strive to spend more time with their mother, not letting her go for a minute. It is important for them to feel her presence and warmth.
It happens that the baby just wants to find contact with his mother, but the mother, not understanding him, thinks that the baby is hungry and offers the breast. In such situations, most babies do not refuse food, since this is the only way to be held. This causes overeating.
To prevent overfeeding, you can play games or talk to your little one before eating. You will definitely need to take the baby in your arms and walk around the room with him.
Until the age of 1, the mother is a protector for the baby. She is able to satisfy hunger, changes clothes, and calms people in a bad mood. The kid trusts her a lot. For this reason, if painful symptoms appear: teeth are being cut, a headache, weakness or colic appears - the baby tries to say this in the form of crying. So he calls his mother for help. Unconscious breastfeeding can quickly calm him down. Thus, the baby’s body receives milk in excess of the norm. When you frequently put your baby to the breast after two months of feeding, this can disrupt the process of lactation and digestion of the baby's food.
At first, some babies become active and require feeding every 1.5-2 hours. This is not easy for a mother who is tired after giving birth. But such children have an advantage over sleepyheads. In other words, if a child drinks milk often, it comes faster.
Sometimes mothers become worried when the baby loses a little weight after birth. But this is not a problem, as babies quickly catch up, having a good appetite. If the baby eats often and a lot during the first days or weeks, then this will only be beneficial.
After birth, children undergo development in several stages. It happens that appetite grows to the limit, and after that it becomes normal. This happens several times.
There is no need to worry when your baby often requires breastfeeding. If there are versions that there is insufficient milk volume in the breast, it is recommended to go to the hospital for consultation. At the same time, you can discuss some nuances or questions regarding future feeding.
Before contacting a doctor, you will need to prepare in advance the information that you will need to give to the specialist:
With the information received, which should be recorded, you need to come to the pediatrician. If it is noticed that the baby is not gaining weight, then this is also worth discussing. The reason for this may be a lack of milk. During this period, it is worth making a decision: continue frequent feeding or start introducing special complementary foods.
It happens that there is enough milk, but the baby still often requires attachment to the breast. This is explained by the fact that the baby is trying to suppress loneliness. This manifests itself when some painful sensations occur. For this reason, overeating appears.
Most pediatricians think that symptoms of malnutrition in a child's development are just as dangerous as overeating. For this reason, it is important to quickly find out why the baby behaves this way.
When a child constantly wants to eat, it is possible that there are errors in improper feeding on the part of the mother. From an anatomical point of view, two types of milk are produced in the breast. It is called anterior and posterior. If we look at the composition of foremilk, it contains more liquid substance than food. In the second, everything is quite the opposite.
When a baby first feeds on foremilk, the hind milk does not arrive immediately. The little one gets drunk, but does not eat. After a while, a feeling of hunger appears. This problem is easily solved - before each feeding you have to pump. This way the baby will get more second milk.
Signs of overeating can be determined by the following indicators:
If you immediately give breastfeeding to your baby at every whim, this entails the formation of an excess of protein and sugar in the child’s body, so overeating is dangerous.
To avoid overeating, you will need to follow certain rules:
When a boy or girl gains weight, but despite this, he strongly demands food, this is thirst, this happens. The child is simply thirsty. You can give drinking water through a pacifier at a certain time (this is effective after eating 10-15 minutes). Such measures allow you to replenish the fluid balance in the baby’s body and prevent him from unnecessary starvation.
When measures have been taken, but the baby still experiences hunger, and plus there is weight loss, a visit to a competent pediatrician is required.
My baby is 1 month old, I breastfeed “on demand”, as a result of which the baby now uses my breast as if instead of a pacifier. I'm very afraid that I don't have enough milk. The second day my grandmother and I are trying to feed our son at least every 2 hours, but his heart can’t stand it, so he screams - he demands the breast.
Due to frequent breastfeeding, colic began to develop, and I cannot calm the baby in my arms (without breastfeeding). We went to the pediatrician - the same story, we had to feed him right at the clinic. It’s not difficult for me, I’m fine with the fact that the child constantly sucks the breast, but what if he demands the breast while walking? What should I do? It's going to get even colder soon! I’m afraid to even go outside with my son, in case he wakes up... I have no idea what to do.
When a baby is born, he is so small and helpless that he practically cannot do anything - he cannot talk, walk, and much more. The only thing he is truly capable of (if adults allow him) is to decide how long he should stay near the chest.
The mother's nipple is the object through which the child interacts with the first experience of influencing the world. He is hungry - he sucks actively, in response he receives a powerful flow of milk; pauses and simply holds the nipple in the mouth, as a result the flow stops; sucks gently, the effect of a nipple is obtained - very pleasant, but there is no milk or it comes slowly. In other words, the baby is near the breast not only to get enough, and if he needs 40-50 minutes, then this must be allowed.
When deciding on the issue, there are two objective indicators: weight gain and the wet diaper test. In the first month, the baby must gain at least 500 grams, and it does not matter how much milk he sucks at one time. In order to conduct a wet diaper test, you need to remove the baby's disposable diapers and count the diapers in which he peed during the day. There must be at least 12 of them.
Colic is not a consequence of the fact that the baby constantly sucks at the breast; it is not a matter of the frequency of latching; colic bothers most babies, regardless of whether they are fed according to a schedule or not.
Colic, rather, is a manifestation of the adaptation process in the gastrointestinal tract. For nine months of intrauterine life, the child only gradually swallowed amniotic fluid. When he was born, he began to suck first colostrum and then breast milk, which he had to digest for the first time. Now your baby is colonizing the gastrointestinal tract with a large number of different microorganisms, gases are released as a result of digestion - all this causes him a lot of problems. You need to be patient, colic usually goes away by three months of age.
The fact that your baby constantly suckles at the breast is explained by the fact that the baby at this age does not yet know how to wait and is not completely sure that his mother’s breast will appear as soon as he needs it. Perhaps his mistrust is aggravated by your separation from him in the postpartum period, if there was one. In other words, your son does not always suck on your breast to get enough, sometimes he just needs to make sure that it is there. And here you also need to stock up on patience, thanks to which it is now being laid.
The condition of the newborn baby, as well as its full development and growth, directly depend on the correct organization of breastfeeding. After a woman becomes a mother within the walls of the maternity hospital, she receives initial instruction regarding the technique of attaching the baby to the breast and the frequency of feedings.
Most medical experts recommend sticking to the on-demand technique of latching your baby to the breast. Thanks to this technology, a newborn baby has the opportunity to independently regulate their nutritional needs without the risk of undernutrition or overeating.
Some young mothers are faced with a situation where the baby asks for the mother's breast after every hour. In order to understand how this option corresponds to the physiological norm, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the main reasons for this situation.
A child’s requests to breastfeed after every hour can be caused by a number of reasons:
In addition, there are several reasons that can cause an episodic desire in a newborn baby to supplement with mother's milk. During the first 12 months from birth, the child’s appetite changes towards an increase due to the following reasons:
Often, young mothers associate their baby's frequent requests to attach to the breast with a lack of breast milk. If a young mother has any doubts about this, she can contact a breastfeeding specialist. During the medical consultation, the specialist will assess the baby’s weight, frequency of feedings and general condition of the baby. Before visiting this specialist, it is important to fulfill 2 mandatory conditions.
Breastfeeding is an important part of the health of the baby and mother. To ensure that feeding does not cause discomfort, you need to monitor whether the baby is sucking correctly. However, as a rule, when a child is born, he instinctively “knows” what to do. Even in the maternity hospital, you should pay attention to how the baby grasps the nipple and, if necessary, carefully correct it. With mother's milk, the baby receives all the nutrients, but the feeding process itself is not a formal meal. Pediatricians in maternity hospitals welcome breastfeeding and are always ready to help, so you can safely contact them for advice.
It is during natural feeding that it is difficult for a mother to control the amount of milk the baby eats, which is why fears or starvation appear. When artificial feeding, the amount of mixture required by age is poured into the bottle and maintained at 2-3 hour intervals. However, this approach is unacceptable for a newborn. For underdeveloped digestive tract and kidneys, food should be supplied in small amounts at different time intervals, which are individual for each baby.
The fact that a child nurses for a long time does not mean that he is overeating. There are a lot of factors here: the activity of sucking (there are lazy babies who quickly fall asleep on the breast), the flow of milk (for some women milk flows into the mouth itself, while for others the nipples are tight), its quantity. You can determine exactly how much a baby has eaten only by weighing before and after feeding.
Despite the fact that the norms for newborns are very vague, they still exist. You shouldn’t “drive” your child into this framework and torture yourself, you just need to try to choose the most comfortable feeding regimen. Mom needs to come to terms with the fact that during the first 6 months of breastfeeding, she belongs more to the baby than to herself.
In the first days after birth, the baby's ventricle is so small that a small amount (7-9 ml) of fatty and nutritious colostrum is enough for him. Feeding these days with formula milk creates additional stress on the kidneys, which cannot yet cope with large amounts of fluid.
On the 3-4th day, milk comes in, which contains more water, so the number of urinations immediately increases. From this moment on, the baby should eat approximately 30-40 ml of milk per feeding, and every day until the 10th day of life, this volume will increase by 10 ml. Accordingly, by the end of 2 weeks of life, a child needs 100 - 120 ml to satisfy hunger.
Further calculations are made based on the body weight of the newborn. So, in order to determine the daily requirement of a baby up to 1.5 months old, his weight is divided by 5; up to 4 months - by 6; up to 7 months - by 7; at the age of up to 8 months - by 8; up to a year - by 9.
All standards are acceptable for bottle-fed children. With breastfeeding, they are only conditional. You can determine for your child only by his weekly weight gain. If the baby grows well, is calm after feeding, does not require frequent breastfeeding, and pees regularly (10 - 12 times a day), then there is nothing to worry about. If a newborn has gained too much weight, it means he is being overfed. However, it is very difficult to forbid a child to eat.
The only way to adjust the amount of milk a baby eats is to regulate the time spent at the breast. But here everything is individual. Pediatricians on the question of how long a child should breastfeed are divided into 2 camps: some say that no more than 10 - 15 minutes; others find hourly feeding acceptable. In fact, it all depends on the baby’s temperament, the amount of milk and even the environment. Sometimes babies extend the feeding period in order to stay close to their mother longer. In such cases, the child does not suckle, but simply smacks his lips and plays around. You should not wean him from the breast, as this may upset the baby.
The duration of feeding in the first months is usually 20 - 30 minutes on each breast. During this period, it is important for the child to satisfy the sucking reflex and feel the warmth of the mother. There should be no rush or fuss during feeding. The child should eat quietly until he is completely satisfied. Often newborns fall asleep during feeding, while they can continue to suckle at the breast. You shouldn’t tear them off, as they give the mother an excellent reason to rest together, because daytime sleep is very important for good lactation.
As the baby gets older, he learns to get satiated faster, and feeding time can be reduced to 5 to 10 minutes.
Many pediatricians advise feeding a newborn on demand. This way, the baby will more easily adapt to new conditions for obtaining nutrients and get used to the feeling of hunger. In the future, you need to feed according to a certain schedule in order to develop a diet.
A first-time mother cannot always tell when her baby is hungry. In order not to torment yourself with fears, it is useful to know how many times a day you should.
Most infants are breastfed 10 - 12 times a day with an interval of 1.5 - 2 hours. However, the time spent at the breast during each feeding may vary. Already closer to 4 - 6 months, the number of meals will be reduced to 5, while night feeding will continue.
If the baby is healthy and eats as much as a newborn should, but is not gaining weight well (less than 100 g per week), then it is necessary to understand the causes of malnutrition. These include:
If a full-term one-month-old baby is lazy to suckle and quickly falls asleep without getting enough, you can try to wake him up by gently rubbing his cheek. Weak and premature babies may simply get tired during the sucking process, so frequent breastfeeding is suitable for them. In this case, the breasts need to be kneaded well and some of the “fore” milk needs to be expressed.
Quite often, pediatricians note cases of overfeeding infants. In such cases, you need to determine how often the newborn eats. Some mothers practice soothing their child by applying to the breast. As a result, the baby consumes too much milk per day. Another reason is unlimited stay at the breast. If the baby suckles for a long time and actively, and there is a lot of milk, then the feeling of fullness may be delayed and, as a result, overfeeding. Frequent and profuse regurgitation may be a consequence of overeating.
To understand why a child does not fit into the norm for weight gain, it is necessary to analyze all the factors. You need to constantly catch changes in the baby’s condition and carefully monitor his mood. All children are individual, so all existing standards serve only as a guide.
