Baby always seems hungry??

Question

I am sure I have a good supply of breastmilk. my son who is now 4 weeks has been gaining weight each time he goes to the doctor and he has the estimated number of wet and dirty diapers each day. He was eating every 2.5-4 hours around the clock. Now for the past couple days we have gotten into a grueling pattern where he wants to eat every hour or so but he only sucks for a few minutes and falls asleep and refuses anymore. When I hold him he opens his mouth to the breast and screams if I dont give it to him. He was feeding so well I almost think he is using the breast as a comfort when he is tired and it just puts him to sleep. Is that possible or is he really hungry all the time? Is there anything I can do to get back into the better pattern we were in? It wasnt perfect but he was feeding for a decent amount of time and contented for 2-3 hours.

Answer 1

use a pacifier if hes latching on good.some babies need to be sucking on something for comfort.then again he could be eating all the time to increase your milk supply

Answer 2

http://www.llli.org/FAQ/frequency.html



"Some mothers are concerned when their baby wants to breastfeed more often than every two hours. "During the early months, many babies do what is called 'cluster feeding;' spacing feedings closer together at certain times of the day (typically during the evening) and going longer between feedings at other times" (BAB, p. 36). This variability in frequency is normal. Moreover, many breastfeeding problems -- including those attributed to "too much milk" or "not enough milk" -- are resolved with more frequent nursing."

I would say growth spurt!!!!

Answer 3

Seems cruel but dont feed him but every 3 hours. Put him into the pattern.

The constant feeding is probably from a tummy ache. He knows his tummy is having a feeling.

Just pat him and pat him and pat him. Get him to burp more. Sometimes babies have more than 1 burp in them.

Answer 4

Two possibilities and neither are a bad thing...

The first and most likely is that your baby is having a growth spurt.  Growth spurts haven frequently within the first year of life.  One at a week, two weeks, four weeks, 2 months, 4 months (this is where people can mistake the hunger need for needing to wean), 6 months...etc

A baby having a growth spurt will seem more hungry.  They will feed more frequently for shorter periods of time.  

This does two things...  It satisfies your babies hunger and feeds their growing bodies needs and it helps you make more milk to meet the new demands your baby will have after the growth spurt has taken place because the b***s work by supply and demand.  When more is demanded of them - they make more!  And as your baby grows, more will eventually be demanded of them.  

The second possibility is that your baby just finds comfort in sucking, but does not always necessarily feel hungry.  This is normal and natural.  There are 'sucky' babies and less 'sucky' babies.  Some people choose to use a soother - others do not.  I personally recommend that you do not.  But we don't want an unhappy baby or an unhappy mummy! - So a good thing to do is get a nice sling (I suggest a woven non-stretchy wrap sling) and wear you baby throughout the day.  This way they can have continuous access to the breast so they are able to satisfied their needs and desires whilst leaving your arms free so you can always satisfy your needs and desires!

Answer 5

Perfectly normal...babies go thru many growth spurts during their first year of life.  I say let him eat!  My son is now 15 months old, but he was just like that.

Answer 6

Babies go through growth spurts every so often, where it seems that they want to nurse all the time.  That's how he increases your milk supply to meet his needs.

And you're right, he may indeed be nursing for comfort, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  He has a strong need to suck, and that's how he satisfies it.

You don't set your baby's nursing pattern.  He sets it.  

Answer 7

sounds like a growth spout to me are you sure that you are getting enough milk at a sitting that could be it to. that is what happened to me my doctor told me to pump out one feeding to see if ava was getting enough milk because are body don't get switch like there do good luck  

Answer 8

He is probably going through a growth spurt so he is keeping his stomach full at all times.

Actually a lot of women can't make enough milk nursing every 3-4 hours, as your baby gets bigger you may find he nurses in a more normal pattern for a breastfed baby which is generally every 1-2 hours during the day (or more frequently but for very short times) and then every 4-6 hours at night.

Actually I have had one that nursed more than once an hour for very brief periods and one that nursed every 3-4 hours for at least 30 minutes.  Frequent short nursing is so much easier to deal with, it can be fit around everything.

http://www.todaysparent.com/article.jsp?...

When four-month-old Connor started nursing every 15 minutes — day and night — his mother, Corrie Quinlan, started to despair. “Is there a problem with my milk supply?” she wondered. But Connor’s plentiful wet and poopy diapers soon put that worry to rest. So what, exactly, was wrong with her infant?

Nothing, as it turns out. Many breastfed babies want to nurse a lot. In fact, frequent feedings may be biologically more normal for babies than the three- or four-hour schedule new parents expect.

Lactation consultant Diane Wiessinger of Ithaca, New York, agrees. “I once led a meeting where I told the mothers — all experienced breastfeeding mothers — that we were going to write the real baby book, one that told new mothers what they needed to know,” she recalls. “One woman said, ‘New mothers need to know that newborns will nurse every hour.’ Another mother spoke up and said, ‘Yeah, and the feedings will last an hour.’ Everyone laughed, and I think that laughter meant that this is a common experience. Babies don’t really nurse all the time, but it can sure feel that way — especially at first.”

[...]

Wiessinger believes that counting and timing feedings may only make a nursing mother feel more stressed about what she thinks she needs to accomplish during the day. The reality, however, might actually be quite different since, as Wiessinger points out, frequent feedings tend to be short and easy to fit around other activities.

Anthropologist Kathy Dettwyler from Texas A&M University says that nursing a lot is typical of babies around the world. She cites a study done in 2000 that looked at the feeding behaviour of infants aged three to four months in three different communities: families from Washington, DC, the Ba’Aka hunter-gatherers and the Ngandu farmers, both of the Central African Republic. They found that the Ba’Aka babies nursed 4.02 times per hour, the Ngandu babies nursed 2.01 times per hour and the American babies nursed 1.6 times per hour. Certainly the American babies nursed less often than the two African groups, but they nursed more frequently than many new parents expect.

http://www.breastfeed.com/articles/newbo...

Breast milk is natural and digests very quickly – usually within two hours. Therefore, breastfed babies eat often. In the early weeks, they may eat eight to 20 times a day – or more. It depends.

As a lactation consultant, I frequently hear moms say, "Well I tried to breastfeed my first child but they always wanted to eat, and my milk could never fill them up like formula did. They were always hungry." Get it? The formula makes them feel very full, but is that good for them? Not really. Formula is deficient in all immunological properties.

I then ask the mothers, "Before you changed to formula, was your baby gaining weight well and having plenty of wet diapers and bowel movements?"

"Oh, yes," they say. "That was going well." I have come to understand that the reason these moms quit is not that their baby is not growing well or that they did not have enough milk, but because they didn't want to feed as often as the baby needed to eat and felt that by switching to an artificial food, the baby would be "happier" and "more content." Their baby would behave more like TV babies. Their perception was that something was wrong because their babies ate often. Perhaps that feeling was reinforced by "helpful" friends or family members.

So I Nursed Him Every 45 Minutes

http://www.llli.org//NB/Law45com.html

http://www.normalfed.com/Continuing/hung...

How many times did you eat or drink something today?  Coffee break?  Water fountain?  Gum?  Snack?  TV nibblies?  Most adults have an urge to eat about every 90 minutes while they're awake!

    Why do you eat or drink?  Hunger?  Thirst?  Comfort?  For social reasons?  Just because?

    Are you trying to gain weight?  If you had to double your weight in 6 months, how would you do it?  Would you drink water?  Chew sugarless gum between meals?  Eat large meals at long intervals?  Or would you do lots and lots of snacking, day and night?

http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detsleepth...

Human children are designed (whether you believe by millions of years of evolution, or by God, it doesn't matter) -- to nurse *very* frequently, based on the composition of the milk of the species, the fact that all higher primates (Primates are the zoological Order to which humans belong, higher primates include monkeys and apes) keep their offspring in the mother's arms or on her back for several years, the size of the young child's stomach, the rapidity with which breast milk is digested, the need for an almost constant source of nutrients to grow that huge brain (in humans, especially), and so on. By very frequently, I mean 3-4 times per hour, for a few minutes each time. The way in which some young infants are fed in our culture -- trying to get them to shift to a 3-4 hour schedule, with feedings of 15-20 minutes at a time, goes against our basic physiology. But humans are very adaptable, and some mothers will be able to make sufficient milk with this very infrequent stimulation and draining of the b*****s, and some children will be able to adapt to large meals spaced far apart. Unfortunately, some mothers don't make enough milk with this little nursing, and some babies can't adjust, and so are fussy, cry a lot, seem to want to nurse "before it is time" and fail to grow and thrive. Of course, usually the mother's body is blamed -- "You can't make enough milk" -- rather than the culturally-imposed expectation that feeding every 3-4 hours should be sufficient, and the mother begins supplementing with formula, which leads to a steady spiral downward to complete weaning from the breast.

http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/fus...

Cluster feeding, also called bunch feeding, is when babies space feeding closer together at certain times of the day and go longer between feedings at other times. This is very common, and often occurs in the evenings. It's often -but not always- followed by a longer sleep period than usual: baby may be "tanking up" before a long sleep. For example, your baby may nurse every hour (or even constantly) between 6 and 10 PM, then have a longish stretch of sleep at night - baby may even sleep all night.

Cluster feeding often coincides with your baby's fussy time. Baby will nurse a few minutes, pull off, fuss/cry, nurse a few minutes, pull off, fuss/cry... on and on... for hours. This can be VERY frustrating, and mom starts wondering if baby is getting enough milk, if something she is eating is bothering baby, if EVERYTHING she is doing is bothering baby... It can really ruin your confidence, particularly if there is someone else around asking the same questions (your mother, your husband, your mother-in-law).

Answer 9

He is probably going through a growth spurt. It will take a week to get over it.  

Answer 10

could be having a growth spurt which also amkes them very tired. also breastfeeding isn't jsut a hunger thing it is a comfort thing too which also helps your milk supply. 4 hours was a long time to go without a feeding before

Answer 11

He is very likely hitting a growth spurt. Babies who are having a growth spurt want to nurse much more frequently than usual. Let him nurse as often as he would like to help build your supply up for the extra milk he will be drinking daily after he has the growth spurt. You can also expect 3-4 more huge growth spurts in the next couple of months before he starts to level off and have them less frequently.