milk, weaning, ezcema, hungry baby.... help please!!! LONG

[princessinapeartree]

Need to canvass the collective wisdom of mumsnet please. DS2 is 15 weeks and quite a big boy (about 15.5lbs). He has also had quite bad ezcema from about 5 weeks all over his head and body - not weepy, just very dry, flaky and itchy poor thing(seeing someone about it in the new year).

So. Up until a week ago he was drinking 5 bottles of 8 - 9 oz formula a day (feeding c. every 3 hours), and sleeping from 6pm to 7am. In the last week though, he has changed, and has been sleeping from 6pm to 9 or 10am, which means his feeds have become more compressed during the day. He has been drinking 9oz or so and then screaming for more within about an hour and a half. But if he has another feed this quickly he gets bad wind and is sicky. Anyway all of this means that he is up and feeding or being jiggled or being cross during most of his waking hours, and not napping for more than 30mins at a time because he is waking himself with hunger.
This morning I woke him up at 9am, gave him a full 9oz bottle, and as he was still sucking, as an experiment offered him another and he took another 4.5 oz, making 13.5oz in total! I'm just waiting for him to throw half of it up since I'm sure his stomach isn't big enough to cope with it.

So my problems - he clearly needs masses of milk (and therefore calories) during the day, but the sheer volume of it is getting difficult for him to digest comfortably. Should I put him on hungry baby milk? My problem with that is that I understand it is just milk which takes longer to digest, but has no more calories, and I think that by doing so he will probably end up on 4 feeds a day (as he is not awake enough to take 5), so won't get the calories he thinks he needs.
He is acting like he needs early weaning, but he is much too young, and anyway because of his ezcema I'd like to leave it as long as possible. But how long is that likely to be if he continues as he is, looking for food all the time?
And why is he sleeping SO long? I know that is a wierd problem, but do you think he may just be having a growth spurt and therefore eating and sleeping a lot? Might he calm down and start waking earlier and eating less?

Sorry for the length of this post - but I know you lot will look at this and see through it much better than I can..... all advice gratefully received!

Ok someone else will probably have better advice, but a couple of things maybe....

When he finishes a feed and cries do you try offering him a dummy? Perhaps it is the sucking he wants not the milk?

I think weaning is 4-6 months for formula fed babies and 6 months for breastfeeding babies. Do you think his ezcema could be due to formula? Isn't 5 weeks when you switched from breast to bottle....maybe worth looking into this? If he is having a problem with formula it maybe making his stomach uncomfortable and this is either tricking him into thinking he is hungry or leading him to look for sucking to comfort him.

No ideas about the sleeping.

6pm is awful early for a baby to go bed and sleep all night. Could you push that back to at least 8pm for last feed? A baby needing weaned would not sleep all night like he does - sounds as though you need to try and pace his feeds and sleeps to conclyde the day later IYKWIM.
I would try that first before changing milk because he is obviously settled on it. I would also try wakening him earlier in the morning as well. However, if you cannot change his bedtime, I would change to hungrier milk before starting solids.

Could it be that the reason he's taking the amount of milk is not because he needs the calories but because it takes that much first milk to give him the sensation of having a full stomach ? I was just looking at the Aptamil Extra packet and the recommended amount for a 15.5lb baby seems to be 35oz so in theory he's having more than he needs. Could the extra calories then be making him sleep for longer, if you see what I mean ? Maybe by changing to hungry baby milk he'll slightly reduce the amount per feed as he'll need less to feel full and go back to his 6-7 sleep and so fit his 5 feeds in.

My DS is same age/weight and recently started sleeping 6-7. He's always had his last feed pretty early and any attempt to move it later before he started this, failed totally - just smiled, chewed the bottle and went back to sleep. I'm apologise in advance if this post makes no sense whatsoever !

thanks for all these responses, you are all marvellous!
pie - he was on formula from 10 days so didn't coincide with the ezcema, although I'm sure the ezcema wouldn't be so bad if I'd managed to bf . I don't think it is sucking either as he sucks his thumb when he wants.
mears - he is completely knackered by about 5.30 and just falls asleep at 6pm after his last bottle - couldn't possibly keep him up until 8 I'm afraid! He's conked out at 6 since he was about 5 weeks old. I may just try him on the hungrier baby milk as you suggest mears and adell. After that epic feed at 9am he then took another 9oz at 11.30....22oz in 2.5 hours... so I think he now fits the criteria of hungrier baby!It does seem to me that he can't need quite so many calories, so your theory that he just needs his stomach to feel fuller makes sense to me adell.

Thanks for your responses... I'll try out aptamil extra and see if that makes a difference - if anyone has any other thoughts I'd be grateful for them! And Mears - what age would you wean a bottle fed big baby with ezcema? Hold out for the full 6 months? Or just start slightly earlier with rice and oats and no wheat etc?

Blimey PIPT! I'm sure this is worrying for you (poor little Miles with his ezcema) but you really do seem to have the absolute opposite problem to everyone else with a 15 week baby. Does he sleep much in the day? If he's very active and doesn't nap for long maybe that's why he sleeps so much at night... I have no idea, my ds didn't sleep at night at all at that age (at least that's what it felt like). He certainly sounds like he's going to be a big lad.

lol aloha! sleeping isn't the problem per se obviously. he has about 3 naps of 30 - 45 mins which isn't enough. i'd rather he slept 2 hours less at night and more at lunchtime but still....
no the prob is how to stuff as much food down him as he seems to want in the time availagble!

dino, we didn't specifically name him after miles davis but we were listening to kind of blue when discussing names and dh said "how about miles?"...!
previous album which had been on was Fats Waller which we thought was funny at the time but given my current problem would perhaps have been more appropriate....

jellyroll morton! but who is blind lemon? i know jeff healey who is blind, but....

Message withdrawn

clarence "gatemouth" brown?!

i dont really want to disturb hisleep though... i can just about bring myself to wake him a little early in the morning, but not at night i don't think. he;s been sleeping through for 6 wks now.

Princessinapeartree - I think that the longer you can delay weaning onto solids the better purely for gut development. You are very close to 4 months and perhaps if you do change to hungrier baby milk you may get to 6 months or you may only get another week. Babies are such individual creatures though. Weaning will not necessarily make the eczema worse - you should be able to get guidance from your HV about the best foods to use. My DS developed eczema as a toddler, but on testing, food is not a problem. It is house dust mite (big problem in my house!), dogs and grass.

And I would definately try and get more milk into him rather trhan substitute with solids.

Princessinapeartree, don't feel guilty for your baby's eczema, I know many people who have breastfeed and they babies also have it. My baby also has episodes of very severe eczema (weeping and bleeding included) and we were afraid of causing him more problems by introducing solids early... At the end we introduced the solids at 5m and followed Gina Ford's book The Contented Little Baby Book of Weaning (specialised in food)which is great to identify problems with food as the ingredients are introduced one by one every three days so, if the baby is allergic you will be able to identify the cause. However, I will try to avoid gluten or wheat derivates, egg, orange juice and honey whenever advised after they are at least one year old (gluten can be intrduced after six months but it's up to you to do it or not).

I totally bf and my boy has looked like a burns victim at times with his eczema. I have been quite low about this as people on here will know. However I am having an up cycle at the moment so here is what is presently working.

Probiotics (you can I think put them in formula) to strengthen the gut. It will help him digest the formula better, which will be good for the eczema.

Oil of Evening Primrose or Flax seed oil. Puncture the tablet and smear the oil on the dry bits - fantastic. When he is older give flax seed oil direct to him orally. (Not sure about EP oil as I take this one and pass on through breast milk).

Some aqueous creams make it worse. We use Cetomagagrol cream with 10% glycerine and 1% lpc (coal tar). Diprobase is fantastic as a soap substitute. Your GP will be able to prescribe both things. The diprobase comes in a great pump container, but the other creams should be taken out a little at a time with a clean spoon, rather than dipping in fingers, as that spreads bacteria through the cream.

Sorry I know nothing about formula, and I have never met a baby with eczema that slept so I can't help you but I hope some of the eczema stuff helps.

Sorry if I made you feel bad about the b/f, my mum exclusively b/f my sister but she had very bad eczema for 13 years, needed hospitalising, so I know it can make no difference at all, I was just speculating about your situation.

Does sound like he sleeps a lot though.

Hope everything gets better soon.

bobthebaby - my ds was prescribed Epogam (concentrated evening primrose oil) a couple of years ago for his eczema. It was in capsule form. I am not sure if it helped or not as he was using other creams at the time. However we decided to rty it again because the skin on his face is sore. When I spoke to the GP he said that it can no longer be given on prescription because there is no evidence that it works. Do you find a difference with the oil?

Found this info
here

All of this is very interesting to me, am so glad you posted PPH. Pie you are so sensitive and wonderful with your suggestions. It is so true that when the baby has indigestion, they can mistake that for being hungry and want to suck for reliefI agree. Also I am a complete believer when it comes to probiotics because I had a fantastic experience with them with my own daughter. She is 9 now, and I still give her a supplement once or twice a week along with myself. When these babies are so young, I don't know what the dose would bePPH you need a recommendation on this. I would go for something dairy-free if possible. The greeks have a fantastic natural heritage of including probiotics in the diet with their wonderful yogurts. I have a book you can read on this: ISBN: 0-89529-847-3, Probiotics - Nature's Internal Healers by Natasha Trenev. It is so hard to know what to do! Anyway, for what it is worth, we had fantastic experiences with the probiotics and they changed Rachel's health for the better. So glad you mentioned this also BobtheBaby. I hate to bring this up, but there is also muscle testing that can be done through you to see if Miles is a bit allergic to the formula, or if not allergic, just doesn't give you a strong muscle test. Doing this testing (I know it sounds so WIERD), helped us to choose the best Soy formula for Rachel (the one that made the muscle test the strongest). It probably isn't the formula, but you could just get this checked to be sure. I was just so crazed to get her feeling better that I tried alot of "unorthodox" methods if you will, just to see--how could it harm is what I thought.

I do cupping on Rachel's back when she has a cold, this is something my Great Grandparents used to do and they called in Boncus (sp?). I believe the Greeks also used to do this and may still in the smaller villages. I believe this fell out of fashion once antibiotics come onto the scene. I am all for Western medicine too, and I believe that antibiotics should be prescribed if they are necessary and would not hesitate to put any of my children on them--I guess I just like to mix things up a bit and try to get them well before these things "sink" in to their systems. Best Wishes PPP and sorry for the long post! Please don't be sensitive about the greek mentions, I find the culture fasinating, the food incredibly delicious, and I would love to live there for a few years at least!

Oh Mears, I wanted to mention that I also totally agree not to put him on solids yet if she can avoid it, you always give such good advice too!

Thank you all! Pie, don't worry, you didn't make me feel bad (I do that all by myself! ). Thanks for all your suggestions. My instinct is to put off solids for as long as poss as well, and as you say Chandra, try and keep away from obvious potential problem foods for as long as possible. Interesting what you say about Probiotics, sunchowder - the hungrier baby milk I've just tried out now says proudly all over the carton "NOW INCLUDES PROBIOTICS" ! Hmmmm.
Bobthebaby, my dd had ezcema from about 18 months until about 6 months ago - and I also swore by cetomacrogol, diprobath and diprobase, but both cetomac and diprobase made him MUCH worse. As did aqueous cream. He is obviously really sensitive to everything. I'm now doing oatmeal baths, massaging him with grapeseed oil with calendula and camomile, and putting vaseline on his cheeks and forehead as these seem to be the only things he can tolerate. And keeping his room quite cool. I'm taking him to see a paed derm in the new year. I'm trying not to think about soya formula at the moment, but I guess I may have to if I can't get the ezcema under control, sigh...

And sunchowder, why would I object to the greek references? I am greek! But since all my greek relatives think that you should give a baby soft boiled eggs and yoghurt as first taste foods, I'm ignoring that bit of my heritage just for the moment....!