How much do the babies weigh? When you are squeezing her nipple, you have to squeeze the mammary gland above the little nipple or you wont get any milk.....You want the babies to continue to try to nurse on momma in order for the milk to come on down, like bjh said.....you are walking the fine line now, making sure they are getting enough from you to keep them from loosing weight and continuing to gain, and letting them get enough nursing from momma to bring her milk down. That is why it is important to give 1cc/oz of body weight every 2 hours to 3 hours....that will be enough nutritional supplement and calories to keep them from fading, and yet allow them to get hungry enough to nurse between feeding from you. Allowing them to be cleaned by momma is vital...the bonding that takes place with that is crucial....and it will stimulate babies to nurse and momma to produce more milk .....it is all a dominoe effect....a balancing act. How much do these babies actually weigh?

Yes, the pups stay with mom all the time, except during supplemental feedings, then they go right back in and she licks them clean and off to sleep they go until the next time.

That's a thought…maybe having too much of the there stuff. She did just get up and get a drink of water on her own. She had not touched water since before the c-section and that's why I was pushing so much the milk mix too. I was surprised that she wasn't more enticed to eat by the canned food, which she LOVED during pregnancy. I will try making some new combinations and see what happens.

Thanks!

That makes sense. So I shouldn't be aiming to fully satisfy them, only limit their intake to 1cc/lb?

They are currently 4.5 (G) and 4.2 (B) oz.

Thoughts on this growth chart?

Yorkshire Terrier Information Center | Yorkie Growth Chart

Based on my pups' parents and grandparents, I wouldn't expect them to turn out so large???

The largest was grandma @ 7lbs.

1cc per OUNCE!!!! They are weighing a little over 4 oz .....I would give them 4cc every three hours....that way, they will be going to momma for suckling...continue to weigh them.....NOT right after they have eaten, but when they are due to be fed.....and if they are not LOOSING weight, stick with that for a day....if they do not GAIN weight in 24 hours, they are NOT getting enough from momma and you need to try feeding every 2.5 hours, or go up to 4.5 - 5cc per puppy, every three hours.... Keep trying to get mommas milk to come down, with puppies suckling and you "milking".....but newborns should NOT be loosing weight.....you have to supplement them with feedings to keep that from happening.

OMG…I'm braindead. Yes, I meant 1 cc per ounce. Sorry about that.
Ok, I'll make adjustments to do it this way, not overfeeding and weighing them right before feeding instead of in between.
For me to milk the mom, is it ok to bring her out of her pen and box as long as pups are kept warm?

Thanks

Yes....but you shouldnt have to....just put her on her side and gently squeeze her mammary glands, with a downward type motion..... kind of like you were trying to get the very last drop of ketchup out of the McDonald package!

I asked mostly for my benefit. I have a bad lower back, so bending over the pen for any more than a moment gets fairly uncomfortable.

In any case, I checked her. Took about 3 'squeezes' to get a full size drop, but I did get 1 at each nipple, all milk-colored. This is better than last time I checked when I was getting a tiny clear drop in about 3 nipples only.

I assume there is still improvement to be had?
Is there a good chance that her milk will fully come in?

Thanks

Sorry about your bad back....I too can not get up and dopwn and bend over like I used to, so my whelping crates are custom made and they are waist high!! No bending over!!! As far as the milk coming down, yes this is good news and she should start producing more and more as the babies suckle....just keep doing what you are dpoing....good job.....momma is being kept well hydrated with liquids, which is more important for the first few days than eating food...her appetite will start to pick up as the days go by....you may have to continue to hand feed her...they love to be pampered and showered with attention!!! Mine do anyway!!

Yes! Funny you should mention waist-high crates! I was just telling my husband today that if/when I do this again, I'm going to have to evaluate the possibility of getting the pen up higher. I've done it with other things in the house, including the washer and dryer…why not this? :)

Great! It's really good to know things are looking up. What a first-time experience this has been so far!

Thanks for your support!

How are you, the momma and babies doing today? I hope things are going better. Have you had the pups tails docked yet?

Good morning! We are all well, thanks for asking. Well, mom and pups are doing well. This whole lack of sleep is catching up to me! It had been 8 years since I didn't get at least 5 hours of sleep straight! LOL.

On puppy weights…It hasn't been a full 24 hours since I switched my weigh-in to be right before feedings, so I can't make a full correlation to the time when I started to notice the pups feeding more on mom, but in roughly 21 hours, they have gained 0.2 oz each…yay. We still have quite a bit to catch up, but they're gaining and that's good :)

Momma is definitely feeling more like herself and is eating more and wanting to come out to play. So, we're trying to work with that because she's supposed to be completely restricted for 10 days for surgery recovery (she's extremely active and agile so she likes to jump and run!) It will be tough for her, but we're almost half way there. After that, I can give her short breaks to play a little in the room and get her daily dose of play time and snuggles.

I do have a question for everyone…she's been digging up her bedding and will create these pockets with it, almost like mini caves, puts the pups in there and then lays separately from them. Is this normal? Is it a sign of anything being wrong? She does let them 'in' for feedings and sometimes just for a snuggle, but a few times I've watched her do this and it makes me wonder…

Puppies are looking and feeling much stronger and sturdier too. And so, with this in mind, I did go ahead with tail docking because we were on the verge of missing that tiny window of time to get it done. But I am debating dewclaws. My other dogs have theirs and I agree it's a pain to keep those short, but I just don't know. After doing tails, I'm not in much of a mood to do anything else to those pups, and the breed standard doesn't call for it, so I'm leaning towards leaving those in.

Any thoughts on dewclaws???

Thanks

I am glad everyone is doing better. Did you dock the tails yourself. Honestly you should have done the dewclaws at the same time. I would recommend having the dewclaws removed but I would not wait past tomorrow to have it done.

It is not unusually for the mom to make a nest for the babies. For my whelping box I use a bottomless wooden box that my husband made and I sit the box on top of the bedding so the mom can't dig and accidentally bury a pup in the bedding. I put a small fleece blanket in the whelping box so the mom can cover them with that if she chooses to.

As the pups get older they will eat less often and the mom will spend more time away from them. When the pups are old enough to start walking you will need to make it where the mom can come and go from the pen the pups are in. I use a board to divide the x-pen so mom can just jump over the board to get to her pups when she wants to.

Yes, I did the tails myself. My breeder is still unavailable. I chickened out of the dewclaws. I don't think my clamp is small enough to get in behind the joint. I've heard some do it with a nail clipper? What's your method?

Ok, I won't panic about the digging. She's not digging all the way down to the bottom bedding, she's digging up the fleece blanket on top. I had a different blanket there, it was more of a cross between a towel and a rug. I removed that and put the fleece in thinking maybe she didn't like that other one. Then she started digging the fleece as well. I'm going to check to see if I have a smaller size one too. I just get scared because I've read so much about so many things and all the stuff that can go wrong. Somewhere I read that when there's something wrong with a puppy, the mom will push them aside and turn her back on the pup…so…I'm so thankful I have some experienced people to ask questions to when I start to panic :) Thank you all for your responses!

Time to start thinking about what I'll need next. Thanks for the idea of the board to separate the pen. I'm sure momma will need a mommy break once in a while :)

If you are not comfortable removing dewclaws then it would be best to either skip doing them or let the vet do them. Some of my older yorkies have their front dewclaws and I just keep them trimmed and none have had any problems from them. I just prefer to remove them now.

When I first start raising yorkies I remember having to get up in the middle of the night so often because I would hear a little puppy crying that had got under the bedding and could not find momma. Once I started using the bottomless boxes I did not have that worry. Some mommas like to dig more than others. It sounds like you are keeping a good eye on your momma and her babies.

Thanks! I'd say 'I'll sleep on it', but there's not much of that happening these days. :D

I will take it into consideration and definitely make a decision by tomorrow.

I do wake up often making sure pups are ok and momma is taking good care of them. I wake up throughout the night and since the pen is right next to my bed, their box is literally next to my head (but on the floor), add to that my heightened state of alert…and yes, I hear every squeak and I wake much more frequent than every 3 hours for feedings. I'm going to be looking for ways to improve the current setup. Thanks for your ideas!

Just wanted to drop in and say congrats on the pups. Hope everyone (including you) are doing ok this evening. Hope the pups start depending on mom more so you can get some rest. I went through this with 7 pups back in August (not Yorkies) so I know what you are going through. Sounds like you are getting things under control. Best wishes and post pictures when you can.

Thank you so much!
We are all well. Pups seem to be nursing a little more from mom every time :)

7 puppies!?!?!?! Wow! I can't even begin to imagine what that's like!
Thanks for stoping by and for the support!

Hi my princess delivered c section also I have a syringe at home instead of cc it is ml which is equivalent. I was wondering I latch on to mom then tube feed she is 4.85oz 41/2 ml is that too much she seems really full? Mom dosent have to much milk yet. My puppy also wants to latch on to vulva. Same as Lola's baby's. Also her mother instincts are not there I have to force her to lye down to feed baby's. She does not clean them or even want to be there with her.

Hi! I'm not an expert, but as you might have seen, I've been having my share of challenges this past week and a half, so hopefully I can share something helpful with you.

A cc is the same as a mL and the babies should be getting 1cc or 1 mL per ounce of body weight. If baby is 4.85 oz, then the 4-1/2 mL should be right in line with what she needs. I did, however have the same thing happen, where sometimes the tummies looked too full. Here's what I changed. I made sure the pups were warm before feeding and I tested it by the temp on the tongue although if you're up to doing a rectal temp reading, you can do that as well. Bottom line is, the outside of the pup might feel warm because of other factors, but the internal temp of the pup may not necessarily be warm. I always warmed the milk supplement as well. And, I forced the pups to feed slower as well as stopped them halfway through, 'burped' them a little, then continued. Smaller, more frequent feedings may also help. If you're tube feeding, I'm not exactly sure what adaptation you might be able to make. I was very fortunate that my pups suckled and I just bottle feed.

For the mom, she wasn't feeling quite herself the first couple of days. It took about 3 days before she was acting more like herself. Although she would clean them a little, her milk had not come in and she wasn't quite sure what to do at first. We also sat with her, laid her on her side and pet her until she relaxed, then put the pups on her to suckle. There is a chemical reaction that takes place within the mom. Mom and babies create a positive feedback cycle, where the more they suckle, the more momma's body will respond both in milk production as well as maternal instincts.

Milk production will sometimes require a little more effort. Lola is still not eating a lot of solid food. She will devour chicken, maybe with a little bit of white rice soaked in liver water, but she turns her nose up at anything remotely resembling solid food. We've tried a number of different combinations and it's been very rare that we get her to take more than a few bites, even hand-fed. But we have kept her extremely hydrated. Lola drinks the same super charged formula that the puppies drink, she's also on whelping pudding (recipe is on a sticky int he Breeder Talk section), we supplement her pudding with fenugreek, and she takes calcium tabs and nutrical. We also stopped feeding the pups all the way and left them a little hungry for momma so they will be encouraged to go suckle from her and hopefully stimulate the milk production further.

After a couple of days, we noticed that Lola was getting some milk, the pups were nursing more from her and were turning away from the formula sooner. We weigh them A LOT to monitor weight. We creeped along the first week, but in the past 2 days we've seen a jump in weight gain…not massive, but certainly more than we had been seeing, so we're hopeful that we're about to turn the corner.

I hope this helps and I wish you all the best with your baby girl and pup/s. Please do keep us posted as to what's going on. As I said, I'm no expert, but I'm more than happy to share the little bit I've learned.

Thank you so much for writing this does me good reading this.

Did Lola have contrations while she was nursing the pup? If so how long did it take to go away.thanks

FYI: If Momma is not cleaning the babies, one must moisten a cotton ball with warm water and mimic momma to stimulate the babies to urinate and poop...

Yes I've been doing that since she came home. Mom wants nothing to do with her even snapped at her once. I'm trying but I don't know what else to do

Mom is fresh out of surgery... it may take 2-3 days for her to come around, as she's still hurting from the incision. Is the baby nursing and is Mom producing milk?

Yes she is producing enough milk that I have stoped the formula. But I must watch during the whole nursing session. She dirint have milk after surgery I gave her 1 capsule of fenugreek yesterday and one this morning and her milk is in. Thanks god..

Yay!:D

No, we didn't experience any contractions.
At least, not that I noticed.

Yes! This is what I saw with Lola too. It wasn't until the third day that she was acting more 'normal'.

This is awesome! Glad to hear the milk is in!

Lola never snapped at the pups, but she would get up and walk away from them. The one thing we did, again, not sure whether this helped, but we were doing anything and everything we could to improve the situation…we laid out a blanket on the floor, let Lola cuddle with us a little bit so she would get some sense of 'normalcy' (she's a real cuddle bug), pet her and let her stretch out and relax. We had the puppies in a box with a heating pad and a towel, nice and warm and sleeping. When she was relaxed, we brought the puppies to her and we were VERY enthusiastic about everything she did good and let her know it. If she laid there and didn't get up, she got tons of 'good girl Lola', the same if she sniffed the pups…when she gave them a little lick, and finally when we put them to nurse and she wanted to get up, but stayed.

We were blessed not to have an extended period of this and every dog is different, so think of what works for you little girl and see if you can use that to steer her in the right direction. Lola likes to cuddle and loves attention and to please…so we used that.

All the best to you…keep us posted!