Feeding and Sleep Concerns

[Patsy121]

Please can someone help me?
My baby is 5 weeks old. I am mix feeding her. Just over the last week she has been 'fighting' the bottle when feeding. The thing is she appears to be hungry still because if you take the bottle away, she cries and you can still see her rooting. What is causing this? I thought maybe she is excessively tired and getting herself fustrated but I don't want to persevere and make feedtimes traumatic for her.
I also have concerns about her behaviour whilst asleep. Particularly when she's falling asleep or waking, again, she starts 'fighting' - kicking her legs and moving her arms wildly. Her eyes aren't open and her face is contorted like she's in pain. It looks like she's having a nightmare. If I wake her up with a cuddle, she comes out of it quickly and seems fine. My mind is running away with me and I'm starting to think the worse.
Does anyone recognise any of these behaviours or do I need to see my GP?
Thanks,

Patsy121

Have you tried offering the breast when she rejects the bottle?

Does winding her help before offering the bottle again?

Have you tried moving feeds forward by 10 mins, so that she is a little less hungry and is less likely to guzzle/panic?

She may need to get a little milk to calm down enough to get a proper feed (whether breast or bottle). My DC would struggle and not latch when too hungry and I was advised to give a little expressed milk in a bottle so that DC would stop panicking and then could take a full BF. That worked for us.

However, if there was a lot of milk in the bottle, DC would guzzle it too quickly, and end up windy and panicking, so we could only use a little milk (30mls) in the bottle and then switch to BF.

DC grew out of this by about 8 or 9wo and would take a full feed without the calming down process first.

Sorry for the lots of questions, but trying the above helped us.

Thanks for this.
I do wind her midway and have offered her the breast but she behaves the same way. However, feeding 10 mins earlier is resonating with me. I do find that she seems very hungry and is gulping quickly so maybe she is panicked. I will try feeding her before she gets to this stage as you suggest and see how this goes. I usually wait for her to wake me up at night before making her bottle so I guess she's already at the hungry stage. Looks like I'll have to start setting the alarm to go off every 3 hrs instead. Do you think I could offer her breast first to calm her down and then the bottle or could this confuse her?
Also, any pointers on my nightmare concerns?
Thanks again.

I would ask your Health Visitor about the feeding issues before seeing your GP. Maybe just a phase and nothing to worry about (I really struggled with breastfeeding to start with as DS just couldn't get the hang of latching on but eventually I went to see a BF counsellor which really helped, after that neither of us ever looked back). Re the sleeping issues, if she's not crying at the same time (and is fine if you wake her up), I wouldn't worry too much. Newborns do have a tendency to wildly flail their arms and legs about which is why it's an idea to swaddle them - I realise yours is probably too old for this but again it's something she should grow out of soon.

Is there a reason why you're mix-feeding her? She might be getting mixed messages from this. Might be an idea to just do one or the other. Just a thought/suggestion!

Hi, sorry I haven't been here - work gets in the way! I agree about asking the HV and / or a breastfeeding supporter - they will actually see what your DD is doing. I got help on positioning for a better latch which helped my DC to stay on longer.

I feel that feeding earlier, pre-empting DC crying for a feed helped us a lot, so hopefully will be worth trying for you. At 5wo, we were just changing from 2 hourly at night to 3 hourly - but my DC was teeny and needed to plump up.

At night, if your DD will take the breast to start with, will she stay on and take a full feed? You wouldn't need to make a bottle then, so you can get back to sleep quicker yourself.

If you want to try just BFing at night, you could maybe keep a carton of readymade formula / expressed milk so that you can make the bottle quickly if she won't take a full BF.

I have a friend who mix-fed all 3 of her children - however, she found it just too hard to do bottles at night. The answer for her was to co-sleep and let the baby latch on as needed at night. My DC wouldn't settle in the bed with us, but if you would like to co-sleep and your DD likes it, that might help.

Thanks, both of you. This really helps.
Went to see my HV yesterday sas she was querying oral thrush but it isn't. She said it is just behaviour and she'll grow out of it. In the meantime, it is difficult because I feel like I'm force-feeding her but I know she's hungry. I really do think that she is also tired which doesn't help matters.
I feel like a right worry-wart but this is my first time!

My DD does all the above when she's overtired, overhungry, has wind or needs to do a poop! I'd stick her on the boob or give her a dummy while you're getting bottle ready. If she's been going between the two for 5 weeks it won't confuse her. Especially if she's properly hungry. You could also get the small ready-made bottles designed for hospital so you can be really quick and faff-free at night. Sometimes if DD is really really overtired she'll only take boob but not bottle and often she'll only feed lying down so you could try that too. That seems to calm her down enough to sleep.

On the bottle I wouldn't just wind her midway. Wind her everytime she starts fighting the bottle/arching her back/turning away etc. When DD guzzles in a big panic she takes in loads of wind. Jiggling her while winding her distracts her from being taken away from the bottle.

The thrashing around sleeping behaviour and contorted face is really normal I think. It doesn't mean they're having nightmares. DD makes awful tortured faces in her sleep when she just has a bit of bum wind! And they just can't control their limbs at all so they wake themselves up. They don't know it's their own arm that just hit them in the face!

To make sure she's not getting overtired you could try putting her to bed after 45 minutes or at most an hour awake, the minute you see tired signs. DD could often only last 45 minutes at 5 weeks. She'd never have slept unswaddled though or at best only after thrashing around for ages and would then wake herself up by hitting herself after 20 minutes or half an hour. Swaddled and with white noise on she'd do an hour or more. Don't worry about the legs still kicking though - those have to be left free from the hip down - they won't stop her sleeping. She's not too old at all - you can swaddle until they can roll over. It needs to be tight though or it'll backfire.

It's no harm going to your GP just in case though. I think something like an ear infection can cause them to fuss on bottle and boob. Or maybe she does have oral thrush that the HV might have missed? It's worth a second opinion for your peace of mind anyway.

Thank you, Sioda! Your child sounds like mine - very reassuring!
Could I swaddle her at feeding time as well or is that strictly for sleeping?
I agree re second opinion on the oral thrush and ear infection. I have noticed that one of her cheeks looks bigger than the other and she won't feed from the breast that woud rest on this cheek so could well be an ear infection on that side.
Thanks again.

No problem! I wouldn't swaddle her for feeds tbh. I think even at this age they need to be able to touch the bottle or boob to work towards being able to push it away or control the flow themselves as they get older. That helps them to be calmer. And on the boob they kind of instinctively do things like trying to bang the boob to make milk come faster and other cute but annoying things! It doesn't seem good to me to interfere with that. Might just wind her up more too.

Also, one sign that they're taking in too much or too fast on the bottle particularly is their arms flail out with fingers spread. That's a sign they're stressed by it so you need to be able to see that to be able to take the bottle away and give them a break for a minute, or change to a slower flow teat if it happens often. And I think they need to put their fists in their mouth sometimes when they want to keep sucking but don't want more milk so they need to be free to do that. If you were really stuck you could do it but I'd only do it for the bfing which is easier for her to control the flow of anyway, not for the bottle.