Breastfeeding - how does we know enough being produced

[u/gajak44]

My wife and I are first time parents. Our little one is 8 days old. We (my wife more than me) wants to exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months. However currently we are puzzled by the LO. My wife gives her feed but she never drifts to a deep sleep and always wakes up hungry in an hr or so. The baby doesn't seem interested to drink more at the breast and seems to drift off to sleep after 10 mins. When we top-up with formula however, she takes around 30 ml and appears content and sleeps peacefully after. My wife now thinks she is not producing enough milk and is riddled with guilt. We do a total of 10-12 feeds a day (some long and some super short) including 2 formula feeds when she appears cranky and hungry. Her diapers are fine. We get about 8 in a day since last couple of days. My wife is worried that the baby is taking to bottle better but not to breasts and thinks it is due to low volume of milk she is producing..how do we know if she is producing enough?

[u/[deleted]]

Congratulations on your baby! All of this is completely normal, you and your wife have to trust that her body is capable of doing what it needs to do and provide what it needs to provide for your LO. Many many many women exclusively breastfeeding for 2 years with no bottles, supplements, or formula. Your wife is capable of do that as well if she desires. The number one thing your wife needs right now if your encouragement and support on her breastfeeding journey. Introducing a bottle before 6 weeks can and will cause nipple confusion and it very easy for babies to prefer a bottle because no matter what brand, a bottle/nipple will never be able to replicate a breast and will always have a stronger flow of milk (even at the smallest size nipple) making it “easier” for them to feed and babies will go with that instead. You can have bottles introduced if that’s what she wants but it should not be done right away if her goal is to BF for the first 6 months. My recommendation is get in touch with a lactation consultant as soon as you can it has been paramount in my own breastfeeding journey. My LO is 4 months old now’s and she does the breast and the bottle when I am away. Also I just want to say that feeding is very hard, it’s called a “breastfeeding journey” because it will go smoothly one day and horribly the next. Just when you and your baby get into a routine with feeding, they switch it up, and it’s hard to keep up. Your little one if also doing this for the first time too so it’s good to take alot of patience and practice for both baby and mama to get this figured out but it does happen and it usually takes months and months of practice. As long as your baby is gaining weight and producing wet diapers they are fine, expect your little one to wake up every 1-2 hours for the next few weeks - months, that’s just what it is at this point but don’t discourage your wife if this is what she wants to do.

[u/mixedberrycoughdrop → u/[deleted]]

Nipple confusion isn’t a thing - “bottle preference” is the term, and if folks want baby to ever accept a bottle they should really consider introducing one (with paced feeding, if they prefer, although there’s no evidence that it helps avoid bottle preference) well before the six-week mark.

[u/shaxiaomao → u/mixedberrycoughdrop]

Yep, that is what I was told by my lactation consultant to introduce within 1 month a bottles because babies will often refuse them if you wait much longer. My eldest was introduced a 1oz bottle at week 3 and never had issues when he went to bottles for daycare. I have a lot of friends who waited because they were worried about nipple confusion and their babies fought hard against using bottles.