Baby throwing up

[racheeeee]

Hi, I hope you can give me some insight into the traumatic evening that I have just had. DS is 10 weeks old on Monday, he is only fed Expressed Breast Milk in a bottle and I normally feed him on demand. We have had some trouble getting him to sleep at a reasonable time over the last week and have decided to get a strict bedtime routine going and I, in my 10 weeks of motherhood knowledge, have decided to give ds a bottle of formula before bed as I have heard that it makes babies sleep longer. So tonight we started our routine at 8 pm, he had a bath, got him changed in soft light, brought him to the bedroom gave him a bottle..he drank .5 ounces of the formula, so I thought to stop that and get a bottle of EBM, so husband brought up EBM bottle, ds gulped down all 4 oz of that, put him to bed with white noise machine in his sleeping bag, came downstairs and heard him crying...so I went upstairs to comfort him and when I picked him up, he belched and emptied the contents of his stomach all over me. So I cleaned him up, calmed him down and gave him another bottle of EBM to try to fill his tank again...he had 2 oz of that and it all came out again, all over him, all over the bed (you get the picture) He was pale (but he is fair anyway) and when he started to cry he got loads of colour back so I wasn't worried about that.

Anyway, what I want to know is why did he throw up like that? Can babies empty their stomachs whenever they want? Last week I gave him some calpol after his injections and he threw up also...

Must go as he is crying now. Any input would be great.

[starlover]

maybe he just drank too much... my ds used to do that

[TearsBeforeBedtime]

My friend who breastfeeds has a similar problem with her 14 week old - whenever she has tried him with a bottle of formula, he has vomitted it up a shortish while later. If you do try him with formula again, then try a different type - sounds like whichever one you used doesn't quite agree with his tummy! Btw the theory is that a baby takes approx 3 hours to digest breast milk, and 4 hours to digest formula, so formula isn't that likely to make a noticeable difference to the overnight sleep. Also if your baby is getting used to a new formula milk, probably best to introduce it during the day, rather than in the evening/at night, to avoid upset/vomitty baby at nighttime.

I don't think it's acase of babies emptying their stomach whenever they want, but that their stomach muscles are still quite weak, so it doesn't take much (e.g. excess wind in some cases) to make them vomit.

Well done for persevering with the expressing (more than I could manage to do, despite good intentions).

[moondog]

Rach,I would interpret this as him having taken unnecessary milk in the form of formula.

Consensus is that it won't make them sleep longer and if it does it's because it is so much harder to digest than b/milk.

[niceglasses]

Hi, if you are just getting him used to formula, maybe it was a little heavier on his tummy and he threw it up or maybe he did overfeed a bit. My dd used to overfeed on the last feed of the day and very often threw it all up. I think if they "sleepy feed" they are often sick. Try not to worry but maybe keep an eye.
PS don't mean to preach or owt, but just from my own exp (3 wee ones) 10 weeks seems young for a "routine" but I know it works for some pple.

[fishie]

i've heard that babies will just vomit any excess. don't think it is a good idea to introduce formula to increase sleep - it is also likely to decrease your milk supply, so approach with caution. i have never managed to express at all and it must be so handy. if you can, do stick with it

[racheeeee]

Thanks so much for your answers! I only have one hand to type as ds is sleeping in my arms so excuse any mistakes...went upstairs, he threw up again, took him downstairs and he kept retching and vomiting. seems to be okay now, but fighting sleep.

formula I gave him was aptimil, I am afraid that b/c I feed hom expressed bm that we will be caught short out one day with no milk so I think that he should be able to have formula. Do you have any suggestions of ones that I could try for him?

As for the schedule...I know it is early but every night I fight with him from 7 pm until 10/11pm to get him to go to sleep and I just want some input on when he should be put in bed. He is a big boy with a full head of hair and its easy to forget how little he is (does that sound daft)
(feel sorry for me vent coming up) I want some control mainly because I am in the UK by myself as family is in US, I can't just hand baby over to dh because baby goes mental in his arms and I have not really had a break in 10 weeks...so if I could put him to bec at a reasonable time, I could eat a meal or talk to my husband. Do you have any suggestions of how I could get ds to bed at 7 or 8 pm? help!

[expatinscotland]

rachee
hang in there, hon! it's going to get better. dd2 has been on ebm since 4 weeks b/c i had PND and i knew i'd need to go back to work when she is 4 months. she is also bf'd.

the first 12 weeks are the roughest.

but now she is having a LLLLOOONNGGG feed around 9 and then sleeping thru till 7 the next day and she is 14 weeks.

[moondog]

racheee,just read your last post again.
It's tough,noone would deny that but I think that your wish to get the baby into bed by 7 or 8 is pretty unrealistic tbh.

You might be better off trying to nap in the day when he does.
An unbroken night's sleep was not viable for me for 10 mths (although fine after that-he is now 21 mths and sleeps 14 hours a night).

Understand your fears about being caught short and gosh,well done to you for expressing like this! Can well believe it's tiring!
Have you thought of freezing some so that you have a stock to fall back on?
Your dh could do an occasional night feed then.

Best of luck to you.

[Tinker]

rachee - he might actually be ill? Lots of vomiting bugs around atm. No fever just puking and pooing. Just keep breastfeeding and see what happens and forget a routine for a while, maybe.

[starlover]

hi again racheeeee! (too many e's! lol)

ds NEVER got on with aptimil, or farleys. Both made him vomit a lot! So it could be that,.
we finally found that cow and gate organic was the only one that he really got on iwth (sma and regular cow and gate constipated him!)

but as tinker says, there are a lot of bugs going round so it could be a genuine tummy bug that has just happened to coincide with the formula!