Three week old baby constantly feeding

What You Should Know About Cluster Feeding

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

How to Know It’s Cluster Feeding

It's normal for babies to cluster feed. It is especially common during the early days of breastfeeding. Cluster feeding is more common in the late afternoon or early evening, but it can happen at any time of the day.

Cluster feeding usually happens between three weeks to six weeks after birth. During this period, your baby experiences growth spurts. As a result, they may require more milk than usual. Throughout these times, it's important to make sure you provide enough milk to keep your baby full.

You should consider it normal for your baby to cluster feed if you notice the following:

Your baby is gaining reasonable weight.
The process occurs during a limited time, like 3-4 hours a day.
Your baby is having a lot of dirty and wet diapers.
The process occurs after birth when you have an adequate milk supply.
Your baby has short rests or sleeps between these feedings.
Your baby feeds for a few minutes then pulls off and on the breast.
Your baby cries and is fussy during this time.

If you are concerned that your milk supply is inadequate for your baby’s needs, talk to your pediatrician.

Causes of Cluster Feeding

Some babies do not cluster feed at all. The following are reasons why your baby could be cluster feeding:

Your baby is undergoing a growth spurt. If your baby is at a stage where they are experiencing a growth spurt, they will naturally need more nourishment. During these times, your baby may want to nurse every 30 minutes to an hour. In the first month alone, growth spurts can happen every few days or even weekly.

These growth spurts typically happen when your baby is around two to three weeks, six weeks, three months, and six months old. However, your baby's growth spurts may not happen at these exact times as every baby is different. Growth spurts usually last a few days.

Developmental milestone. Your baby may be undergoing a developmental milestone during the first six months. When your child experiences physical and psychological changes, they may need nutrition. The process can cause your baby to cluster feed.

When Is Cluster Feeding Not Considered Normal?

There are times when your baby may frequently breastfeed to the point that you need to involve your pediatrician. Such instances include:

Your baby breastfeeds non-stop.
Your baby cries unless they are breastfeeding and continues to show signs of hunger.
Your baby appears jaundiced (yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes), becomes lethargic (appearing tired and dull), or has tremors after long periods of non-stop nursing.
Your baby is not gaining weight.
Your baby is not producing wet and dirty diapers.

How to Deal With Cluster Feeding

Cluster feeding doesn't mean you don't have enough milk. However, some parents are concerned that they may not be producing enough milk for their baby during cluster feeding episodes. If you are in such a situation, be sure to:

Stay hydrated.
Find a breastfeeding partner to bring you drinks and snacks and keep you entertained during the cluster-feeding episodes.
Stay prepared for your baby’s needs.
Do not miss your meals.
Relax, get comfortable, and follow your baby’s lead.
Know when your baby is hungry.

When your baby is full but can’t seem to stop craving more, you may use non-nutritive sucking to soothe them. For instance, using a pacifier instead of breastfeeding your baby every 30 minutes will save you and your baby lots of fussiness and time.

Benefits of Cluster Feeding

Some of the advantages of cluster feeding include:

Providing your baby the nourishment they need to grow
Helping to soothe your baby
Ensuring your baby gets enough sleep after a satisfying nursing session
Providing comfort, security, and reassurance that sustain your baby's emotional needs
Boosting your milk supply to fit the needs of your baby

Challenges of Cluster Feeding

Cluster feeding can make you feel emotionally and physically drained. Studies show that many parents may experience frustration or fatigue from cluster feeding. Some lose confidence in their ability to breastfeed.

You may become worried that you aren't producing enough milk, especially if your baby takes a long time to settle when nursing or your breasts feel empty. Another challenge of cluster feeding is the sleep deprivation that comes about when your baby wakes up frequently to nurse.

During periods of cluster feeding, parents may find it helpful to talk with a lactation consultant or pediatrician. Your doctor may also recommend additional ways to care for your nursing baby.

How Breast Milk is Made

Did you know your body gets ready for breastfeeding before you even give birth? While you are pregnant, your breasts change. These changes allow your breasts to make milk and may cause them to feel fuller and more tender.

Once your baby is born, their suckling releases hormones in your body that cause your breasts to make and release milk.

If you are concerned that your milk has not come in or that you are not making enough milk, speak with WIC breastfeeding staff.

Role of Your Breasts

Milk production occurs within the alveoli, which are grape-like clusters of cells within the breast. Once the milk is made, it is squeezed out through the alveoli into the milk ducts, which resemble highways. The ducts carry the milk through the breast.

The size of your breasts does not affect your ability to breastfeed. Women with small breasts make the same quantity and quality of milk as women with larger breasts.

Role of Your Brain

When your baby suckles, it sends a message to your brain. The brain then signals the hormones, prolactin and oxytocin to be released. Prolactin causes the alveoli to begin making milk. Oxytocin causes muscles around the alveoli to squeeze milk out through the milk ducts.

When milk is released, it is called the let-down reflex. Signs of milk release are:

Tingling, fullness, dull ache, or tightening in the breasts (although some moms do not feel any of these sensations).
Milk dripping from the breast.
Uterine cramping after you put baby to the breast during the first few days after birth.

To encourage your milk to release, try these methods:

Find ways to relax, such as going to a calm place or trying deep breathing.
Place a warm compress on your breasts before breastfeeding.
Massage your breasts and hand express a little milk.

After you've been breastfeeding for a while, the let-down reflex can happen for many other reasons, like when you hear your baby cry, or you see or think of your baby. It also can happen at the time of day you usually breastfeed your baby, even if your baby is not around.

Role of Your Baby

Your baby helps you make milk by suckling and removing milk from your breast. The more milk your baby drinks, the more milk your body will make. Frequent breastfeeding or milk removal (8-12 times or more every 24 hours), especially in the first few days and weeks of your baby's life, helps you make a good milk supply.

Your milk will continue to vary according to your baby's needs. Each time your baby feeds, your body knows to make more milk for the next feeding. The amount of milk you make will go up or down depending on how often your baby eats. By nursing for as often and as long as your baby wants, you are helping your body to make more milk. At first, it might feel like you are doing nothing but breastfeeding. Soon, you and your baby will get into a pattern that works for both of you.

Why does the child constantly hang on the chest? ❤️ KIDY.eu

Not enough milk?
Temporary crises
What to do in temporary crises?

“My baby just hung on my chest. I know what to feed demand, but he demands endlessly. What to do?!" - is the most common question to lactation consultants. It turns out that the phrase "the baby is hanging on the chest" means different things for everyone.

It happens that mothers expect that the baby will ask for a breast every 3-4 hours, eat 15 minutes, and sleep the rest of the time. And the requirement of the breast once every 1.5-2 hours, as most newborns do, is alarming. So: if a baby of the first months of life asks for a breast every hour or two and, having received it, eats up to half an hour, then this is not “hanging”, but the normal behavior of the baby. Over time, the baby will begin to ask for breasts less often, but for now you need to wait. For the mother's body, frequent feedings are also useful: they help a good contraction of the uterus, prevent the development of postpartum complications and regulate the total amount of lactation so that the mother does not experience milk stagnation. It happens differently: the baby asks for breasts in 2-3 hours, but, having received it, eats for an hour or even longer. This may be a variant of the norm, but the situation can be improved. Also, carefully look at the general state of affairs with feeding, if the child lives in the rhythm of “an hour I eat - an hour I rest” or spends more time on the chest during the day than without it.

Not enough milk?

Usually the first thing a mother thinks about is that if a newborn is constantly hanging on her chest, then she does not have enough milk. Absolutely not necessary! But you need to check this version. And only weight gain can reliably show this.

Do not rush to get upset, this can be fixed!

Have a lactation consultant look at your feeding. He will suggest ways to improve, assess whether supplementary feeding is needed and whether lactation should be stimulated.
If a consultant is not available, look for improved attachment to the breast. Often this is enough for the breast to begin to be better stimulated to produce milk, and the child to suck out this milk better.
If the baby has gained a kilogram or more in a month, then we are not talking about a lack of milk. Most likely, you can think of a temporary crisis ...

ATTENTION - this is a very important point!
Often mothers are asked to express milk, evaluate breast size, etc. for testing. But these are all very unreliable signs that are different for all women and they don’t talk about the amount of milk. In mothers, the breast reacts differently to pumping, the amount of glandular tissue is different for everyone (in a small breast it can be much more than in a large one, where adipose tissue predominates). The only thing you can really trust is how your baby grows and gains weight.
For the first 3 months of life, an increase that indicates a sufficient amount of milk - from 500 grams per month or more.

If a child gained 500-700 grams in a month, but he had to hang on his chest for hours, the mother needs to work on organizing breastfeeding, otherwise the situation usually worsens later. If your baby added less than 500 grams, then, alas, he really does not have enough milk.

Temporary crises

These are situations of a sharp increase in breastfeeding or a sharp increase in the duration of feeding. Every nursing mother faces this, it’s just that someone understands what is happening, someone gets scared, and someone simply, out of ignorance, takes steps to stop breastfeeding.

Crises are caused by various reasons:

Adaptation crisis when new circumstances appear in the baby's life . Usually adaptation crises: the second week of life, moving or going to work, travel. The baby is trying to calm down and regain confidence in her mother's support through more frequent attachments. The crisis can also be provoked by internal factors: for example, a child is preparing to fall ill, and through an increase in attachment, his body fights the disease with the healing elements of breast milk. Babies also tend to hang on their chests before any kind of developmental leap (usually new skills, such as crawling or walking). Mom's milk and attention give the baby the strength to conquer new heights.
Growth spurt crisis . These growth spurts are tied to certain periods of a baby's life: about three weeks, a month and a half, three months, six and nine. During such periods, many children actively grow. For such rapid growth, babies need more nutrition than usual, so they quickly empty their breasts, which gives mothers the impression of “missing milk”. There is actually milk in the chest, just on crisis days the child eats it much more energetically and is ready to constantly ask for breasts, to eat more and more.

The most seemingly obvious option to supplement with formula often becomes a “red flag” for the mother’s body: you don’t need so much milk, the child manages anyway. As a result, milk production really begins to decline rapidly.
In a crisis situation, it is important not to panic, but for a couple of days, literally lie down with the baby in bed and patiently feed, shifting from one breast to another as it is empty. You can drink hot tea, use lactogons, but this is not enough without frequent feedings. And most importantly, crises are a very short-term phenomenon, they rarely last longer than 2-4 days!

What to change?

Let's go back to the most common situation with "chest hanging": the baby gains weight only slightly above the lower limit (500-700 g in the first three months of life or 400-500 g in the next three months). When, with such increases, the child is applied to the breast every 2-3 hours for about half an hour, this is expected. But if the feedings are more frequent and longer, then sucking is ineffective: the baby sucks out a portion of milk for a very long time, enough to eat.

What to do?

Adjust breastfeeding to the so-called “asymmetric” . When feeding, the breast should be captured deeper from below than from above: the main working parts of the baby's mouth (lower jaw and tongue) are located below, and stimulation from this side should be maximum. This method of application allows the baby to receive milk most efficiently and stimulate the breast to produce new milk.
Bring the baby to the breast at such a height that the nipple is at the level of the spout. On the chest, form a crease with the nipple in the middle so that the thumb is on top of the crease and opposite the baby's nose, and the index and other fingers are below, parallel to the baby's lower lip. When a child feels a breast nearby, he reflexively opens his mouth and throws his head back; then the nipple, which was at the level of the nose, will be directly opposite the mouth. And at this moment, the fold from the chest must be directed into the child's mouth, trying to make the nipple point upwards into the sky. If everything is done correctly, then the baby’s head will be slightly tilted up when sucking, the chin will be tightly pressed to the chest, and the nose is either completely free or touches the chest only with the tip. If the chin does not touch the breast, but the nose is pressed into it, then this is just inefficient sucking, in which the baby has to suck for a very long time to eat, and even the nipples can be injured.
To increase the amount of milk received per feeding session and reduce the application time, make sure that the feeding is effective . It is a mistake to continue to keep the baby on the chest after he has already emptied it. If the baby has eaten the bulk of the milk from the breast and continues to suck, receiving drop by drop, a teaspoon in five minutes, then it is not surprising that he will not be particularly full after an hour. At the same time, if the mother simply transfers the child to another breast, in the same time the baby will receive a full, good portion of milk and eat much better!
“But I heard that the breast should not be changed often, otherwise the baby will not receive hindmilk,” mothers object. Alas, this recommendation has created a lot of problems where they could have been avoided: it only applies to situations of excess milk production. If the lactation is so profuse that the baby has to swallow the lighter foremilk for a long time and actively before he gets to the fatter hindmilk, this makes sense. But if there is not much milk, then the child eats both the anterior portion and the fatter posterior portion, and after that continues to squeeze the last drops out of the breast for another half an hour, instead of receiving the second same portion from the other breast. ..
Pay attention to the baby's sucking rhythm to help you navigate the timing of the breast change. Forward, more liquid milk flows freely, the baby swallows it quickly and actively. Then the rhythm of the sips slows down, for several sucking movements there is only one swallowing. When the baby has to make 3-4 sucks before swallowing, it means that he has reached fatter and thicker milk.
A little more - and the rhythm is already five or six sucks per sip, the chest is almost empty. At this point, squeeze the breast at the base with one hand, which will squeeze the rest of the fatty hindmilk into the ducts. After the baby swallows a little more actively, but when his throat slows down again, it's time to change the chest.

Sometimes during times of crisis, it is necessary to transfer the baby from one breast to another several times during one feeding. But this is more effective and will give the child more benefit than keeping him all this time on one breast. When the baby begins to eat better, you will soon notice that the total feeding time has become shorter, and weight and height gains are better.

And don't hesitate to contact our consultants for help!

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The child often asks for breasts: how to understand that the child does not have enough milk?

Published: 01/15/2023

Reading time:

6353

The birth of a baby is a joyful event, but it is also associated with worries and experiences. Especially if the child in the family is the first of the parents, there are many questions that are not so easy to prepare in advance. One of them: “Why does a child often ask for a breast?”

Breastfeeding at a glance

Mother's milk is the best food for a newborn. It contains in the right proportion important substances for growth, development, and protection against infections. It is always at the right temperature, it does not need to be cooked and thought about storage. In addition, the lactation process adapts to the needs of the baby: the breast produces exactly as much milk as the baby needs. Pediatricians agree that it is not worth restricting a child in breast milk in the first month after birth, and then the baby will form his own feeding regimen. And yet, many mothers are worried if the baby began to ask for breasts more often. Is it related to hunger and lactation disorders? Or is something bothering the child, and in this way he seeks solace? Let's consider these questions in more detail.

Psychology of newborns

Breastfeeding is not just a process of satisfying hunger, but also a close psycho-emotional connection between the baby and mother. In his mind, they continue to remain one, and separation is perceived painfully. Thus, there are 2 main psychological moments why a child often asks for a breast:

The baby got used to the mother's body - this is a familiar environment where it is warm and safe, and the beating of the heart has a calming effect. After birth, the child enters a new world for him, where there are many unfamiliar sounds, smells, and pictures. It is especially difficult to lie alone in a crib, which seems huge when you get used to the pleasant crampedness. The natural desire is to hide. And the most suitable place is under the mother's breast. There is warmth, a familiar smell and a beating heart. And mother's hands create a cozy cradle.

The areola around the nipple contains Montgomery's glands, which secrete a secretion that smells like amniotic fluid. This smell is familiar, it gives a sense of security and the baby calms down.

Why is the baby hungry? The natural response to hunger is the desire for breasts. In addition, in infants, the stomach is able to hold a small amount of food, and the process of sucking is difficult for them.

Saturated and tired, newborns fall asleep. But the rapid digestion of milk again causes a feeling of hunger. No matter how hard it is for the mother, it is not worth denying the baby the breast, since the subsequent lactation process and the formation of a sufficient amount of milk depend on it. Including night feedings are very important, since from 3 to 8 in the morning more of the hormone prolactin is produced, which contributes to the production of milk. But if the child began to often ask for breasts, the mother begins to worry about whether he has enough food and whether everything is in order with lactation. Let's analyze the possible reasons for such a famine:

baby only eats foremilk. And it actually quenches thirst. Back milk is more fatty, it is it that brings saturation;

the baby does not latch on properly. It is very important from the very beginning to monitor how the baby captures the areola of the nipple. How to check: the baby's mouth is wide open, the lips are turned out, the tongue lies under the areola, the nipple is deep (at the base of the tongue), the tip of the nose and chin are pressed to the chest;

mother's lack of milk. Such a problem can occur for various reasons (malnutrition, stress, illness, etc.), but it is important to seek help from a specialist in time and start taking action.

3 more reasons why a baby may ask for a breast. At the same time, the mother may think that he is hungry, but in fact the baby has:

the sleep pattern has gone astray. Often a child needs a breast not to satisfy hunger and thirst, but to calm down and fall asleep;

tummy problems. Gas and colic are a common problem in babies. Experiencing pain and discomfort, the baby seeks to calm himself in the usual way and asks for a breast;

activity has changed during the day. Experts believe that regardless of the type of feeding, babies behave more restlessly in the afternoon.

Changes in appetite

In the first year of life, the child grows very quickly. Changes in his body are also reflected in his appetite: it can change in certain periods.

Lactation crisis . During this period, the woman's body adapts to the needs of the baby. If there was even a short break in feeding, then the volume of milk decreases slightly. Because of this, the child may experience a feeling of hunger. That's why he starts asking for breasts more often.

Growth spurts . The child grows either faster or slower, which is reflected in the appetite. During such periods, there is the greatest hunger and frequent demand for breasts. To deny the baby in his natural needs is not worth it.

How to understand that the baby has enough milk

In the first days after birth, the baby eats an average of up to 30 ml of mother's milk per feeding. It’s not scary if he ate more one time and less the next, most likely he will just ask for the breast again faster. As a rule, with a normal feeding regimen and a sufficient amount of milk from the mother, by the age of one month, the weight of the child increases by 500-600 g. And yet, how to understand that the child has enough milk? There are 2 easy ways to do this.

Wet diaper test . Calculating the daily number of acts of urination and defecation of the crumbs allows you to give a very clear answer to the question of whether the baby has enough food. The age of newborns in a certain way affects the number of "going to the toilet." So, in 3-4 weeks of life, children walk "in a small way" 20-25 times a day. When using diapers, it is very difficult to follow this. Therefore, for a while they will have to be abandoned in favor of diapers. If the baby urinates 20-25 times, and at the age of 6 months to 1 year - 15-16 times, then his mother's milk is enough for him. Reducing the number of urination to 8-10 times a day suggests that the production of breast milk in a woman has decreased. And if there are less than 6 used diapers, this is a clear sign that the baby does not have enough mother's food. In this case, it is necessary to urgently consult with a pediatrician.

Weighing. To control the amount eaten, many mothers buy special baby scales. How to use them correctly? To do this, take a sheet of paper, draw a table on it. The first column is the time, the second is the weight before feeding, the third is the weight after eating. Next, you need to weigh the hungry baby, write down the data and attach it to the chest. After feeding, also record the weighing information in the table.

How long should one feeding last

The answer to this question is purely individual and depends only on the baby himself, because each crumb already has its own character. Some children tend to eat as soon as possible - 10-15 minutes is enough for them. Others eat slowly, savoring, enjoying the process itself. From the chest, they may not be weaned for 30-40 minutes. Mom should not worry that the child eats for so long. But if the baby suckles for more than an hour, this does not benefit anyone, so you need to try something to distract him. Also, during feeding, it is not recommended to change the breast, as the interruption of the process is annoying for the baby.