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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Cluster feeding/colic debate?

6 replies

monkeybird · 26/11/2007 22:39

OK, me and the DH are having a bit of a row every evening... DS3 regularly screams (with real tears!) periodically and loudly, between about 3-4pm till about 6-7pm...

DH can usually (eventually) calm him down with a dummy in a dark room and he falls asleep until the next bout... This usually takes a good 10-20 minutes of intermittent screaming.

I say however that this is cluster feeding and he just needs to be fed every half hour to hour in the evenings...

So I've just been feeding him more when he cries. But this has consequences - he has started developing green poos that seem very uncomfortable and he thrashes around a lot more in the evening (more than when he was just screaming? ?) so DH is convinced I'm giving him colic by overfeeding and I should try and space the feeds out more again.

Certainly (with all 3 boys) there have been times when they desperately needed to suck in the evenings but this just made them worse and in the end they'd just get furious with the breast and furious without it...

And with DS1 and DS2, they both had problems with green explosive poo because - I think - of my oversupply issues... DS2 had terrible problems with screaming, acidic poo, nappy rash, stomach discomfort that were instantly cured when I did single-sided feeding for a while and had a dummy in the evenings instead...

So I guess I'm asking what other people's experience of cluster feeding and/or colic; or whether there is any research evidence on cluster feeding that can help us decide.

And how do other people tell when enough feeds is enough of an evening and ?

OP posts:
kiskidee · 26/11/2007 23:16

i don't have any research evidence but i think your oversupply issue can may be part of your answer.

haven't you not tried the single side feeding with ds3? maybe try latching him on the same side for one evening, and expressing just for comfort off the other and then on the following evening latch him on only on the side that he didn't have the previous night? for a few days?

babies need to suck and i think you know more about bf than your dh.

dd666 · 26/11/2007 23:20

my dd got colic whilst i bf her the only thing that calmed her down other than feeding was bathing her!
have you asked your mw about baby massage?
dont buy infacol your gp can prescribe it!
my gp prescribed me gaviscon in the end for dd's colic!

moondog · 26/11/2007 23:21

Nothing remotely scientific about it but with dd we had 10 horrific weeks of crying from midnight-6:00 am every bleeding night.
I fed from both sides.

With ds,he was a little dream, fed him from one side at a time.

I think....

sarahtwobratz · 26/11/2007 23:22

I had this with DD2 when she was tiny, she would feed and feed until I was sore and there was nothing left. She wouldn't take a dummy. Sorry can't offer any advice, but you definately have my sympathy. Wish I had known about this site 18 moths ago. Hope you get some answers

DaisyNightingale · 26/11/2007 23:29

no experience of colic, but I had an over supply issue that I have resolved successfully by only ever doing single sided feeding. Even when DD was cluster feeding, I would feed off the same side three or four times unti it was feeling very empty and floppy before switching sides.

IKWYM about the furious with and furious without thing.

Have you checked out Kellymom? There is lots of advice on there re oversupply.

with regard to knowing when DD was hungry and when she was just sucky, I used to let her suck on my finger for a bit. If she was genuinely hungry, she would soon let me know about it, but if she was just needing to suck she would go to sleep. so, we got her a tommee tippee "closer to nature" dummy. They are kind of hollow, and you can actually see the difference in her suck when she is hungry as opposed to just wanting to suck.

You don't say how old your DS is, but my DD had settled down past the cluster feeding stage (usually accompanied by a growth spurt) by about 16 weeks.

monkeybird · 27/11/2007 10:16

Thanks all - he's 13 weeks, and though I did start off with single sided feeding when he was v little (as if he's big now, LOL) it didn't strike me to try it in the evenings - Doh!

So I'll give that a try this evening and see if that evens up the thrashing/green poo but still allows him to suck suck suck...

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