First Time Mum with an upset 7 week old- desperate for advice

[MadameG]

Had my gorgeous boy 7 weeks ago after a horrific emergency home birth and I've had a horrid time recovering- still in discomfort and pain from stitches/ infection and so trying to cope with looking after my son is doubly hard. I'm also having to see a psychiatrist to deal with the horror of what I went through at the moment. I feel completely overwhelmed.

We've been told different things by health visitors and midwives and drs re my son and I am totally confused and pulling my hair out. Any advice anyone could give would be very much appreciated.

He's a bottlefed baby (awful birth and terrible sickness afterwards put paid to my attempts at bfing) on Aptamil cartons.

Basically, his behaviour/ sleep is very erratic and tricky:

• He sleeps for anything from 1 hour to 7 hours at a time
• He sometimes pants - fast breathing
• Wide eyes
• Flails arms at bottle sometimes
• Squeaks as if choking and sounds squeaky while winding
• Has lots of wind, which is v difficult to get up
• Does huge burps but not sick often
• Wakes within about 5 minutes when laid flat in pram top or in cot. We've resorted to letting him sleep in his car seat temporarily, out of sheer desperation
• Grunts a huge amount, especially during sleep, he keeps grunting and squirming, goes red faced and then goes back to sleep again

He's on Colief at the moment, and we've also tried infant Gaviscon. Neither have helped with the above, and Colief is annoying because you have to be so strict with the stupid 30 minute rule of letting the bottle rest so we sit there at 2am with a miserable crying baby waiting for it to be time to start the feed.

I'm completely frustrated by the conflicting advice I've been given. He's just reached his '25th percentile weight' but now they're saying his feeds are too big (sometimes he wants to woof down anything from 200-300ml) and to reduce it down to a max total of 850mg a day, giving him cool boiled water inbetween. Surely that will mean he will lose loads of weight?!!

Plus the sleeping/ settling stuff is a big issue. I've tried tilting the cot/ pram top but he still wakes up. And the loud grunting he does in his sleep means that both me and my husband can't get any sleep ourselves and are getting very stressed. It's turning into insomnia in me, I can't fall asleep at all anymore with the stress and have been awake since 2:30am today.

Please help.

Cant offer much advise but didnt want to leave ur post unanswered. Have u tried colosynth (sp) crystals? I have used them with all 3 of mine and the difference it made was amazing. You just give them half an hour before a feed and helps bring the wins up. I never gave half an hour before and they still worked great.

Hope that helps but im sure somebody will be along soon with more advice

Congratulations on the birth of your son, I'm sorry you've had such a rocky start though. It sounds like your little boy might have acid reflux (the fact that he doesn't like sleeping flat but is OK in his car seat is a common sign I think). Have you seen the GP - I presume yes as you have infant gaviscon? Maybe go back and ask for something different - I think some people find that gaviscon doesn't work that well but they have better luck with something else.

I don't know much about bottle feeding I'm afraid, but if you repost this in the breast and bottle feeding section you'll get lots of good advice.

Re: the grunty sleeping - I know the advice is to keep the baby in your room, but we had the same problem and decided to put the baby in his own room from 2 weeks old, on the advice of the HV! This actually helped a lot as we all slept much better, but that's a very personal decision and I know lots of people will disagree with me.

Hang in there, it does get better!

Madame, firstly congratulations on the birth of your son. You're on a wonderful journey and it WILL get easier and better. Glad to hear you're getting support for your birth trauma.

I'm goign to keep this brief and just suggest a few things as your ds sounds very like my ds2. That said much of what you describe didn't worry me one jot as they sound quite normal but do need to be 'dealt with'

Try baby wearing with him - get a sling and carry him round with you (will help with your bonding too). Maybe let him nap in the day on you. The car seat sleeping is not a good idea as it can affect their breathing although we let DS2 sleep in a bouncy chair in the day which he loved. Small babies do have very erratic sleep patterns. Have you considered co-sleeping?

Do not give him boiled water! Babies need nutrition. Post in the feeding section on here and you'll get loads of very helpful advice on that. May even get some suggestions on establishin late bf, I have heard of it...worth an ask

Colief isn't helping in the night so ask doc for something else. Don't be afraid to as ask and ask again if you feel something isn't working for you and ds

Nothing you've described is ringing alrm bells for me. He sounds like a normal but who's struggling a bit to adjust.

I don't know much about reflux, but I do know about traumatic births and infected stitches so please don't forget about looking after yourself physically too. I know how that can slip when you have a very demanding baby.

Some babies are real grunters and squirmers, it doesn't usually mean that anything's wrong. If it is due to wind then Infacol before feeds can help bring it up.

Agree with posting again in B&B feeding topic. Hope things get easier for you and congratulations. This bit will pass! :)

I would also add that at 7 weeks I wouldn't personally let him sleep for seven hours - sleeping through feeds like that will make life harder when he wakes up. As I understand it if you're bottle-feeding then you can have more of a four-hourly routine than you would bf-ing.

Other than that - flailing, panting, wind, grunting and squirming - all sounds perfectly normal!

Hi there - you poor thing. Babies are such hard work at the start.

I'd definitely recommend Infacol before feeds - then wait for the wonderful orange smelling burps. We used it for about 5 months, as if we stopped DD turned into a windy grumpy little demon!

Also you sometimes have to regulate your little one's sleep. I'd let him sleep as long as he wants at night, but wake him every 3/4 hours in the day for a feed if he sleeps that long. Then he may sleep more regularly at night. But don't expect him to sleep through yet.

Our DD was very windy. She found a baby swing quite soothing, and liked her bouncy chair. Also we propped up the head end of her crib with some wood blocks and put a folded towel under the mattress to elevate her head as we suspected she had a minor reflux problem. It worked a bit I think.

Regarding the size of feeds, if he was breast fed you wouldn't know he was taking so much so it wouldn't be a problem. The feeds only seem big because you can measure how much he takes, so I can't see that being a problem. If he was being sick all the time that might indicate he was over indulging, but as that isn't the case I'm not sure you need to worry. I was never much impressed with my HV. they seem fairly useless to me! I tried giving my DD boiled water to help her bowels as she got constipated when I had to change from breast to formula (similar to you, I wasn't well after the birth and struggled breast feeding for a month or so until I finally gave in). She soon realised what was going on a refused to take water so that was that!

Hang in there, it will get better. Just take a peek at your beautiful sleeping baby and concentrate on how wonderful he is!

Sorry, just skimmed as only on for a few minutes, but that sounds like silent reflux to me. Look up Living with reflux and click on the infant section. See if it rings any bells. And if it does, do not be fobbed off by your gp as I was at first.
Good luck.

Hi there,
I know about reflux and infected tears.

Firstly, I completely understand how hard it is to deal with a newborn when you're feeling so shit yourself. Don't underestimate how tiring it is to have an infection. Get rid of that and things will be a lot better. Are you on antibiotics?

Everything you describe about your baby sounds like my DD, except the sleeping seven hours bit . She was diagnosed with silent reflux by our fab HV.

We didn't find Infacol or Infant Gaviscon to be any use, but a medicine called Ranitidine (easily given via a syringe) and a food thickener called Carobel did the trick. Both were on prescription.

We put DD in her own room at 8 weeks and her sleeping (and ours ) improved immediately.

Best of luck and hang in there.

MadameG
Have you tried Dr.Brown's bottles? Also have you thought about changing his formula-Aptamil do a Comfort formula-I remember ringing the Aptamil careline a couple of times and found their advice v good..
I found gripe water the best to help with wind. Both mine were v windy and I tried everything -in both cases as their tummies/digestive systems matured the symtoms eased..

Skippingturtle- I have had 2 courses of antibiotics but to no avail. I've still got slight yellow discharge but the dr says it will improve on its own.

Bobby99- thats a good point about waking him from daytime 7 hour sleeps- might help with him sleeping at night.

We went to the dr this morning and she said he may be lactose intolerant, as with reflux he'd be vomiting more. She's prescribed some soya stuff to try instead of aptamil and on Monday I'm seeing her again to review how it went. My husband, mum and sister are all lactose intolerant so it does seem plausible that ds is.

Re the sleeping- he has co-slept with us sometimes, but he's a major night time wriggler and even if he's on top of the duvet in his sleeping bag I'm still sleeping with one eye open for fear of him being ok. The dr reckons that if this soya stuff works he'll sleep ok in his cot again. She also said the same as you guys, that he can take what feed he wants and not to get obsessed with weight charts.

I seriously feel that HVs are bloody useless. Their advice all comes out of textbooks and isn't specific to each child. A lot of the advice they come out with is airy fairy crap anyway.

Joh75- we use Closer to Nature colic bottles but they don't seem all that great. We've got a tub of Aptamil Comfort but I heard that we'd need different teats for our bottles, and hadn't managed to get some yet.

We tried Gripe Water once or twice but it didn't seem to do much.

MadameG, I think I'd get a second opinion about your infection, certainly for me once the infection was clearing up I felt much much better. I had mine for 7 weeks, and I don't think it would have improved on its own.

I don't know anything about lactose intolerance, I'm sure there'll be someone along shortly who can help you with that. Silent reflux is so called because there isn't any vomiting, so perhaps it might be worth investigating that. My DD has the silent version, and, whilst the lack of vomiting is a blessing, it seems to be much more difficult to get a diagnosis.

A paediatrician I saw also seconded the idea of letting the baby eat however much they want, which was one less thing to worry about.

Sorry your HV is rubbish, I know I'm lucky to have had a good one.

Good luck.

Definitely sounds like silent reflux to me. My ds was so bad he almost became terrified of the bottle. I have to say, Infant Gaviscon did work for him, and at almost 11mo, he has only just come off it. His wind is still tricky, and his burps are still huge and very loud, but he isn't distressed by it any more.

Fwiw, my ds barely vomited either, not that I want to question the advice of your dr!

Look after yourself, take all the help you can get. It gets better, honestly!

make sure you take arnica tablets to promote healing.

alot of the crying when being put down is textbook wee baby stuff- it's very normal to only want to sleep on their mum/dad for a while... try not to fret about that. both of mine slept in their car seat for times and are absolutely fine at 5 and 2.5.

some babies are also very windy and there are lots of ways to relieve that- holding the baby tummy down on your arm while supporting their head with your hand gives relief, putting them down then picking them up again sometimes gets wind moving, infacol etc can help.

if it goes beyond normal wind, consider silent reflex and try gaviscon.

Skippingturtle- I've been seen re the infection by 3 drs and 2 midwives in the last few weeks. I'm so sick of people peering at my vagina I can barely tell you. I had soreness, tingly sensations and stuff down there before but all thats gone now. Its just the slight yellow discharge thats left. I'm so sick of it though. I've been through hell recovering from this. For 2 weeks I couldn't even get off the sofa on my own, someone had to drag me up. I couldn't hold ds, nothing. I was in shock and was shaking like an old man, and felt like vomiting all day. My lower regions were bloody agony, peeing made me want to scream and just moving my leg an inch caused terrible pain. I could never go through another birth after this. Guess its just lucky we only planned to have one child.

Blinks- I'll definitely get arnica tablets.

Pinkjenny- I hope you're right about all this getting better. I adore ds but there have been times over the last few weeks when I literally can't cope.

Oh dear, that's really awful. I haven't really got anything to add, hope things improve for you quickly.

Hi, firstly as everyone has said, congrats and I hope things improve soon.

On the sleeping patterns, I saw an article below from Chireal Shallow on baby sleep routines. I'm not sure if it will help but might be worth a look as she has helped us in the past.

www.thelittlegreensheep.co.uk/Latest-Baby-News.aspx

thelittlegreensheep.posterous.com/tv-sleep-expert-chireal-shallows-top-10-baby

Good luck!
Tim

Thanks skippingturtle x

Timmi- I'll read those links, thank you

I really feel for you. I have a very similar experiance currently with my DS 8wks old. I had a cesarean and contracted MRSA, Cysitis,etc.I have been put on a huge amount of Antibiotics :( I am breastfeeding at the moment and am pretty sure (although being told otherwise from HV and midwife) that the antibiotics are causing pretty much identical symptums to your baby. I've just taken the last dose, so I'm hoping to see an improvement. I've been trying invacol but not really sure if it makes a difference, but co sleeping definetly does and we all have a lovely snuggle which certainly eases the stress! good luck,onwards and upwards!

Oh god Brillbryant, you poor thing. Hope things improve for you soon.