1 week old hungry and in pain?

[crystalgall]

DD is 8 days old. Formula fed on aptamil. She was born 9.2 pounds.

BF went down the pan (traumatic labour, I nearly died) and so FF. We started slow with 30-40ml in hospital (for 5 days) but it has increased now to over 3oz a feed (90ml?) and she's hungry again after only an hour/ hour and a half. That can't be righ can it? MW say 3 hr gaps but she is frantic by then.

She's also not sleeping well and cried in Moses basket and only poos once around 4-5am. I'm worried we are filling her belly
With milk and she has a tummy
Ache but she's so hungry we don't know what else to do.

Last night was awful. She just didn't want to sleep in basket and as I have a third degree tear and horrible torn c section too I just cannot hold her withkut pain. Thank god we are at my mums and she and my sister took turn holding her to sleep until :
2am. DH tried but she kept screaming and he has work.

Any thoughts. Should we feed her formula on demand or drag out the 3 hrs?

Does she have an upset tummy?

And why won't she
Sleep properly during day and night? I thought they were suppose to be doing these big long sleeps and she is so unsettled all the time.

Oh dear, you sound very frantic, not meant in a patronising way but just calm down and cut yourself some slack.
Your baby is only a week old, a
week! There is absolutely no 'should be doing this' or 'should be doing that' at this age (or any other!) let go of that notion right now and just go with it, try not to be so controlling or you'll find yourself wishing time away and that's very sad.
She has a brand new digestive system so of course she's going to struggle digesting formula, she may also be constipated and may well have tummy ache, there is nothing you can do but go with it. Feed on demand, don't drag it out or make her wait, little and often is going to be better than big feeds every 3 hours. Hold her, let her sleep on you, she needs to be held and comforted, I've never met a baby yet who will sleep in a Moses basket!
In short, this time will pass, you don't want to look back and have regrets because you got so stressed about what she 'should' have been doing, youve had a traumatic birth, so has she, she also needs time and patience to get over it.

Def feed on demand. 3hrs is such a long time without liquid for a week old ( even adults usually drink more often)

I would be offering 2oz every hr

I just wrote a really long reply, & my battery died...
Argh!
To recap:

She's tiny, her tummy is tiny. So she can't fit much in. However, she has high energy needs. So she'll be hungry often. Likewise, liquid.

At this age, they can't really tell day from night. Nor can they recognise anyone, except by smell. So she likes to be held. She's used to being inside you, where it's warm, and soft. And now everything is different, all bright and colder, not as soft, and loud. Probably a bit scary. She wants the people & things that are familiar.

Re: sleeping. Babies have a different sleep cycle to adults. They start to wake 10 minutes after dropping off. You need to ensure you don't move her until after this has passed. So either settle her in bed (which we found impossible) or hold her for at least 10 minutes after she's gone to sleep, then try putting her down.

Ignore anyone who suggests she should be fed on schedule. Your baby doesn't know about the schedule, she just knows she wants feeding.

Sympathy on the sleep deprivation. DH & I didn't know any of this when we had DD. We didn't have internet access & I hadn't found MN. We took turns sleeping, while the other held DD. Sleep deprivation sucks. It does make you irrational & tearful, bit don't let anyone make you feel inadequate. You're a new mum & you're entitled to look after yourself a bit, you're still healing.

Feed on demand- try not to worry about "stretching feeds out" yet. It's way too soon. At a week old my baby fed every hour, it's normal and I think maybe your mw meant never go longer than 3 hours rather than aiming for that gap. The crying in the moses basket is most likely to be more about the moses basket than hunger, babies need to be close to you and hate being put down. It's really hard in the early days op, you have my sympathies. With ds me and dp took it in turns to stay awake for around 14 days I think, with dd (14 weeks) we co slept to get through the first few weeks. Have you looked at co-sleeping?

I know I sound frantic. I am. The control freak in me is struggling. You would think I had never done this before but I actually have a 4 yr old. He had colic for 4 months and I had awful PND so I can barely remember that time. It's a blur of depression.

I keep telling myself to calm down as I can feel myself going the same way with anxiety.

It's worse this time because the labour was so bad (I lost 3.5 litres of blood and my stomach tore). I honestly can barely hold her so am already missing out in bonding time. I would co sleep but can't rock her to sleep like she wants.

Ok so just feed when she wants. Even if it's 3oz every 2 hrs...

Feed on demand. Don't worry too much about the volume. You might find it drops. My wee one would sometimes take 90mls at that age. I had to write the feeds all down as I couldn't remember my own name in first couple of weeks so just looked back.

She would sometimes take 30mls then 90mls. Averaged about 11 feeds/24hrs.
She also brought back up what she didn't need

Me and OH also took turns with staying up with the non sleeping crying bundle of joy.

Oh and are you able to wind DD easily? That may be what is causing the pain? We used infacol before bottles.

for you. What an awful time you've had. Can you maybe get a sling for your DD? Might make it easier to hold her close without having to hold her as such iyswim.

You poor thing. Reading this I felt so sad for you, it is so tough when you hurt every which place and you feel like you can never be normal again. I think you are so strong to be putting your baby's needs first when you've been through such a rough time.

Great you have family to help, it is so important that you get yourself feeling better. Good too that baby is nice and strong already, you've done a great job getting her to this point.

hope you feel better soon and sorry you've had such a frightening time of it. I'd have been on my knees in your position.

Gosh thanks so much.

It has been a horrific week pain wise and I am in tears all the time. DS is getting nothing from me at all and I feel guilty all the time. I think I need to start another thread about all that!