Is this normal or is it reflux?

[themitch]

Hello everyone

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but I thought I'd start here and if it's not please shout.

I have a 4 week old daughter. She was born on 13th December at 11.33am and weighed 7lbs 8oz. She was forceps delivered.

She's doing fine, generally, and putting on good weight. When the midwife discharged my wife after two weeks, she weighed our daughter - Ellie - and her weight had gone up to 8lb 7oz.

She's bottle feeding Aptimal using Dr Browns bottles. And for the first couple of weeks she was having about an ounce or two of breast milk which my wife was expressing.

For the first couple of weeks Ellie was being sick - just a small amount - and it seemed to always be after the breast milk. So we stopped giving her the breast milk (although my wife is still expressing and freezing it).

But even now, 4 weeks on, Ellie is still being sick after most feeds, albeit only a small amount.

It takes about an hour to feed her, winding her after each ounce and getting at least one half-decent burp before continuing on to the next ounce.

The first week she was taking 3oz every 3 hours, however, by the end of the second week we noticed that she was not really making it through the 3 hours before getting hungry again.

So we upped her food to 4oz, hoping it would sustain her for 4 hours. It did, at first, but then she started taking 4oz every 3 hours. Although at night, she would occasionally be able to sleep for 5 hours before waking up to be fed.

Now, she doesn't seem to be making it through 3 hours, and 4.5oz before becoming very agitated and expecting to be fed.

This evening for example, we fed her at 7pm, she took 5oz, winded well, and had a nappy change after 4oz. But, after she drained the 5th oz, she wouldn't settle.

So, it took 1 hour to feed her (7-8pm), then an hour to settle her - usually by holding her and shhhh-shhh'ing her until she falls asleep (8-9pm), then she slept in her moses basket for half an hour (9-9.30pm) before waking up and behaving like she was hungry again (rooting, crying, kicking, etc).

So that's just 2 and a half hours after having a 5oz bottle and only having a half hour sleep.

At 10 o'clock, she comfortably took another 4oz.

Does this sound right? Is she eating too much or does it sound like she may have mild/silent reflux? Or is this perfectly normal for a 3-4 week old baby?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the long waffling message.

M

[hellabell]

If she was being entirely breast fed you would have no idea about what volumes were being consumed, so maybe don't worry about that side of things too much. Mine fed like maniacs, I thought I was doing very well if I got 3 hours between feeds (breast feeding though). I don't think her feeding sounds like a problem, it's more her being unsettled that's worrying you? They do say that at your daughter's age some colicky symptoms can arise, and my DS was def. at his worst at 5 weeks; seemed to get windy and sore and needed a lot more soothing and settling than he had before. I think it passed in a couple of weeks, he had a couple of screaming nights so we went to Dr and told more or less to deal with it.. and of course the unsettled spells are always at their worst in evening.

[l39]

Is the baby actually being sick or is she possetting? Possetting is normal and doesn't cause the baby any distress (as an emetophobe the difference is very important to me!)

I've never bottlefed but if a baby is rooting and crying, I'd always assume she was hungry and feed her! I agree with hellabell there.

If the baby refuses to feed and is still unhappy, then maybe it's colic, but try simply feeding first.