How long should a newborn breastfeed at each feeding?
My son is a week old today and up until yesterday he has been doing good with breastfeeding but I have a few questions.. In the beginning he was nursing 15-20 minutes at each feeding about 2-3 hours apart. He was seen by the lactation consultant when he was 4 days old and had gained back 4 ounces of his weight and the nurse said he was getting enough to eat. Now, starting early yesterday, he will only feed for about 5-10 minutes before he falls asleep. I play music and play with his feet to try to keep him awake and feeding longer, but it seems he is full after only that long. He is eating more often but only sometimes, sometimes he’ll go the full 3 hours still but more often it’s 1.5 to 2 hours. He wets plenty of diapers every day but seems to have diarrhea.. very watery, sort of curdled looking poops, and not very many of them. His poops tend to be very small, some as small as a quarter size with not much actual ‘poop’ in it, more watery.. I’m worried he isn’t getting enough to eat although I’m offering it to him whenever he seems interested in eating. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.. or if this is normal.. since they said he was gaining weight at my appointment the 12th. I also notice that he seems to be gulping when he feeds. I’m using a nipple shield right now because he had a poor latch and now I’m engorged and he can’t get his mouth around more than the nipple itself.. when I feed him the nipple shield gets full very fast and I have to sometimes empty it before he can feed, so I know my milk is well established and there is a lot of it. He seems like he’s sort of gagging and gulping when I feed from the right side, he does much better with the left, but still gets hiccups after about half of his feedings and sometimes will spit up an entire feeding (has happened 3 times since he came home.) Any ideas what’s going on? I want to be sure my little one is getting enough to eat!
