| Hi Mammalicious,
I think I had the same issue as you, with a very fussy baby. [Up to now, still very fussy, I think each baby is individual, you can be sure that your baby is probably going to be more demanding than others, like mine :)] In the first 12 weeks especially! I remember I was so frustrated, it didn't help when my mother & sis-in-law was telling me to do all these things which were against what LLL would recommend. I also had the problem of her sucking for more than 1 hr, but it was the only way to keep her happy.
She hardly slept during the day, awake most of the time, she needed to be carried/rock to sleep (yet another thing which I was told that I was spoiling her - otherwise, she won't get her nap during the day). I remember very well that there was a time when she was feeding back to back in a 24 hours cycle during the 3rd week, I really thought I had not enough milk - so my husband searched the net to make sure we were doing the right things. I was constantly told to supplement her with formula by family members -but my husband was determined to not let that influence me; in the end, I didn't and her weight was steadily increasing, it was evident that she was not underfed as they all thought!
Plus on top of it all, I had sufferred Mastitis, I was so hoping to stop feeding her at the same time....but in the end - I persevered, after 12 weeks, it cleared, I was ok :)
Oh, I also heard story similar to yours about a baby being over-dehydrated, thus mentally slow....but I had not gotten the full facts.
It's stress you don't need during these weeks, don't worry too much! You should be ok. Actually, I did a lot of reading too while I was feeding her in those 12 weeks!
All the best....Hope that helps.  |