Help with bottle feeding and being sick ... Please!

[poohbearrules]

Introduced a bottle in the evening to try and reduce the cluster feeding, on advice of HV, and try to increase weight gain. Using aptamil formula. First few days were fine but last night and again tonight DD has thrown it all up. sounds like she's choking and then, once we've cleaned it all up, really nasally (sp?) and seems to struggle to breathe. Any ideas why she's started to do this and what we can do to prevent it? Still BF rest of the time.

Could be one of two things - either, your baby is allergic to cow's milk based formula (this can result in vomiting) or she is downing too much in one go from the bottle. This is really easy to do with bottle-feeding, not that possible with breastfeeding.

What's the issue with weight gain? How old's your DD?

CLuster feeding is totally normal - your HV should know that. Did she suggest other ways to increase weight gain, eg., feeding more frequently, offering one breast, then other, then switching back to first breast etc?

Thanks for the reponse. Think she suggested a bottle to try and give me a break! She feeds pretty much constantly from around 7pm till 11pm, and then 2/3 times during the night. Falls asleep on the boob too! DD was 6 weeks yesterday. She was 6lb born, went down to 5lb9 and last week weighed 7lb2. Gets weighed again tomorrow so we'll see what/if she's gained. Decided not to give a bottle tonight, no vomiting so far.

Ach, it's so hard, the first bit.

Falling asleep on the boob: normal. YOu can try and tickle feet gently to wake up or de-latch and see if that wakes DD up.

Night feeds: normal, and very good news for your milk supply if not for your energy levels.

Feeding constantly 7-11 pm: totally, totally normal. It won't be like that forever. Promise :) There are various theories about why cluster feeding happens but it is completely to be expected if very hard on you :( Typically it calms down at around 12 weeks or thereabouts.

It looks from the charts that your DD was born between 9th and 25th percentiles and is now somewhere between 2nd and 9th percentiles. As long as other things OK (e.g., urine output and pooing normally) I can't imagine that's too much of a worry. If it continued going down down down then that might be a concern but I don't think you need to panic ATM.

Best things for improving weight gain are: making sure latch and milk transfer OK (BF group could maybe help?); checking nothing like tongue tie is impeding milk transfer; and increasing frequency of feedings. I would aim for around every 2-3 hours at the least during the day.

Best of luck, hope things settle down a bit soon for you.

Thanks Narmada , I know it's all normal, just blooming hard work! I'Ve done the tickling feet, side of face, even blowing on her! Sucks again for second or two then goes off to sleep again! Sleep, yeh I remember that!! Will perserve and hope she gains.

Your DD behavior sounds quite normal. I think Narmada has some good suggestions but I would add that at 6 weeks with concerns about weight gain don't worry about stretching the feeding to 2-3 hours. Offering and feeding as often as you can.

Opp just reread this post. Sorry narmanda you were saying feed at least every 2 -3 hours ( so more if possible).