The witching hours?! 5pm-9pm Dummy vs No Dummy & Hunger Vs Wind. Where is the manual?! ;)

[shouldIbecrossaboutthis]

Ok, this isn't a moan as I really am very grateful for my baby being quite 'easy' so far, but I think he is in pain and I'm not sure what to do?

He is a week old and breastfed, I feed him on demand and he usually feeds between 3-4 hours in the day and 5-6 hrs in the night - I realise I'm very lucky. He has put on 8oz and usually feeds for 17-20 mins and we have about 4 dirty 3 wet nappies a day on average.

Anyway, everything runs like clock work until about 5pm when he gets quite wriggly and sucky. This started on Wed night, I just thought he was hungry as he was rooting and looking for something to suck so I just kept feeding him every hour and winding him after the feed. He was awake for 4 hours and then did a massive projectile vomit and got hiccups.

This is when wind occurred to me, I thought BF babies didn't get wind?! :\

So yesterday I fed him as he wanted but stopped 10 mins into the feed to wind him for 10 minutes. I tried winding him sat up cupping his chin, high on my shoulder, over my knees, bicycle legs and also some colic massage winding rub. No wind came up and then bang on 5pm again he got grumpy.

This time I didn't feed him every hour but instead gave him a dummy (which is also a worry, I don't want him needing a dummy to fall asleep or it giving him nipple confusion) and then fed him 3 hourly, he wasn't content but didn't scream and stayed awake for 4 hours. At about 9pm he did a big poo and some big burps and then after a feed went to sleep from 10pm-4pm but did stir/whimper 3/4 times during the night.

Sorry for the mammoth essay! Does this sound like wind to anyone else, or hunger? I'm worried I'm depriving him of food (it's hard not seeing the food going in) and also worried he is in pain and I'm not doing the 'right' things to help him. Why don't babies come with an instruction manual?!

Any tips ladies? Is there anything that helps or is it something he has to figure out himself? Is there a way to tell if it's a burp wind or a fart wind? He pulls his legs right up to his tummy if that matters, particularly on one side.

I'm trying to BF him more sat up today to see if that helps, but any advice would be amazing; sorry again for the longest post ever :)

shouldI, your baby is a week old, and lots of things are new to him....but you are familiar and lovely to him (he was inside you a few days ago :) and he needs you to be close to him, comforting him, feeding him...just as you did on Weds night. He took a bit more milk than he needed so brought it back up - no Big Deal.

All babies (and all humans) take in air when they feed, and mostly, babies deal with it by burping and don't need any 'engineering' with patting etc etc or stopping feeding after 10 mins to encourage this.

He doesn't sound to me in pain from what you say. It is absolutely 100 per cent normal for a baby to have cluster feeds (often in the evening) and to want to feed on and off for several hours. Trying to fight it or control it or change it is a waste of time - much easier to go with the flow . So no need to schedule his feeds to 3 hourly or give a dummy or worry that it's wind and when to wind him...just keep him close, feed him 'ad lib' with no timing or scheduling, keep a muslin handy for the throw-back mop ups:) , and r....e.....l....a.....x :)

He's clearly doing just fine, though I would expect his feeds to become more frequent soon.

He is cluster feeding between those times by the sounds of it!

How big was he at birth? I would be inclined to wake him to feed him. 6 hrs is a long time for a week old baby to go without food.

BF babies do get wind. Both mine have been very gaseous! Oh and they both get grumpy at 5 o clock. Tis the witching hour.

Sounds like you're doing a good job.

Cluster-feeding in the evening and fussiness starting at about 5pm is normal. It's not necessarily wind, and I've been told there's nothing you can actually do to bring wind up - it comes up when it comes up. The best thing is just to keep feeding.

Brill! I'd rather just feed him to be honest, it much easier than all this patting and jiggling.

I was jut worried if it was wind then feeding would make it worse and that's why he was sick. It was the first time he'd been sick and he was in bed next to me, I was a little bit scared to be honest and didn't want it to keep happening.

He was 8lb 14oz born and on day 5 weighed 9lbs 5oz :)

You're both doing brilliantly but would still expect to be feeding more frequently as this stage.

My 5 week old ds has the fussiness at this time of day too, I think it's really really common. There is no answer as to why as far I can tell- have done a fair bit of googling.

I find infacol before feeding this time of night does help the wind come up easier and anything is worth a try.

The frequent feeding stimulates supply so best to go with it during these early days. After my ds has had a good few hrs comfort sucking, feeding, burping etc I do sometimes use a dummy as he seems to like it & it helps him fall asleep. No problems with weight gain here either.

The evening cluster feed phenomenon!
Get comfy and get feeding...you may be there for quite some time ;) x

Brill! I'd rather just feed him to be honest, it much easier than all this patting and jiggling.

I was jut worried if it was wind then feeding would make it worse and that's why he was sick. It was the first time he'd been sick and he was in bed next to me, I was a little bit scared to be honest and didn't want it to keep happening.

He was 8lb 14oz born and on day 5 weighed 9lbs 5oz :)

Well last might was better except he threw up when I fed him at 1am, I swear there was about half a pint of it!!