Pediatrician says I’m nursing my 4 week old too often - not sure what to do

@christopher000 Girl comfort nurse who the f cares. Yes if your baby gains weight too quickly they may delay crawling and walking and other milestones. But a baby only nurses for comfort and food and the comfort nursing can be really good for your supply too. If you're worried you could pump just before you nurse the baby or before the baby might want to eat, if you're able to, and that way the baby has to "work harder" for the milk so they might get less. But I wouldn't do this all the time since obviously they need to eat a lot. My baby is a chunk, like 95th percentile for weight and hight and our doctor said she's completely fine and it's fine that she wants to nurse all the time and that she eats through the night. And now that she's older it's leveled out to about every 3 hours maybe 4. But those first 12 weeks it felt like every hour they wanted to eat. It's totally normal. I'd look into getting a new doctor if you're able to, because it sounds like this doctor might be using outdated information and isn't keeping up with the times. Of course this is just my opinion and my anecdotal evidence but still. Let them nurse if they want to nurse. Also, you could try comforting them in other ways like rocking or maybe a pacifier, but I tried a lot of things with mine so they didn't comfort nurse and it only worked a small fraction of the time so after a month or two of being miserable I just accepted my role lol.
 
@christopher000 Baby might be gaining “quickly” but your one month old is lighter than mine at birth so I think you’re fine for now.

I’m in the medical field. Babies don’t understand overeating at this point. At this age they eat for comfort and hunger and that’s perfectly okay. Now as she gets older, if she’s still not breaking the habit, you may need to intervene some to avoid this becoming an expectation of how to be comforted but she’s still so young. You can always slowly cut back so by the time she’s at an age where this is problematic, you’ve weaned her a bit.

One week cut her off at 2 hours and 50 minutes then 2 hours and 40 minutes, then 2hr 30min, and so on. She won’t miss the extra 10 minutes and you will slowly be cutting the time down. However, I feel like she will self wean long before you get down to 15-20 minute sessions
 
@christopher000 Mine danced around saying the same thing to me this week about my 5 week old jumping growth curves. It’s like they can’t compute that a human might not grow in an exact and predictable way and fall neatly into a curve at every checkup.

As far as I know, babies are good at eating the right amount from the breast. When they’re comfort nursing they suck differently so they don’t get as much milk out (you can feel it change).

So unfortunately unless you have an amazing pediatrician who actively educated themselves on breastfeeding you will end up with generic information they regurgitate to everyone. I miss my old pediatrician but we moved cities and I just need someone to give shots and write scripts (get ready to do the diagnosing my friend, read up on common child illnesses bc the doctors are so lazy these days)
 
@christopher000 I have three kids, I nursed them all.
If they are eating to the point of illness, then yes, you could be over feeding.
But babies feed on demand and as long as your baby is comfortable to feed and wanting to, you should be good.

May be a good time to switch pediatricians.
 
@christopher000 So I have a 7 week old. We were (and still do) spending lots of boobie time in the early evening starting around 4 weeks which I thought was cluster feeding. I've worked out that yes it was probably a bit comfort feeding, but was also her adjusting to going to sleep and stocking up for longer stretches overnight. My LO struggled with the adjustment to learning to sleep (or rather we weren't prepared for it). We've started building a night time routine with adjusting the lights in the house and trying not to overstimulate her from about 5pm. It's a work in progress, but maybe your LO us also starting to adjust to say time and night time etc? Either way, I wouldn't worry too much and keep doing what works for you guys.
 
@christopher000 Girl….feed your baby whenever she wants. If she’s latching and eating, then that’s what she wants. She’ll stop when she’s done. They don’t have any rhyme or reason when it comes to breastfeeding, they just ask for boob whenever they’re hungry or want comfort. Breastfed babies have a completely different set of behaviors when it comes to eating, sleeping, and comfort then formula fed babies, and most pediatricians are hugely ignorant when it comes to this.
 
@christopher000 So ask your doctor if they can provide evidence - or if they are giving advice . Evidence is what matters. I had twins - one was eat and done - the other did what yours is doing.
 
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