feeding and winding baby

[worrillo]

Dear all,
My baby is 3 weeks old - he is premature (original due date next week). He is gulping milk down from a bottle and putting weight on, despite my best efforts initially to breast feed. I feel terribly guilty as I desperately wanted to breast feed but his size, the fact he is tongue-tied (-it was taking 2 hours to breast feed a very frustrated baby) and I had a spell of dehydration/infection has hindered the process. I am still expressing enough milk for a couple of feeds per day but have resorted to formula bottle feeds between. Just to add to my guilt, despite looking extremely uncomfortable and gripey throughout the latter stages of a bottle feed, I am unable to get much wind up from him - as he looks like he has wind I continue to try winding him for a quite a while but he still looks uncomfortable when I put him down - what am I doing wrong? Have tried changing bottles, formula, plus anti-colics but nothing works. Any advice on bottle feeding, winding, or even the remotest possibility of picking up breast-feeding again would be very much appreciated!!

Many thanks

it is still possible to pick up thr bfing again, but it will be hard work; and you need to be expressing at least eight times in 24 hours including two ar three times at night.

the tongue tie needs to be dealt with as this is possibly adding to his windiness and will certainly help with getting back to full time BFing.

Does the hospital where he was born have an infant feeding co-ordinator? If so, he/she should be able to help with the tongue tie issue and also with the relactation or else put you in touch with a breastfeeding counsellor who can.

There is information on the tongue tie here and also on that site (but not linked from that page ) is a list of hospitals where tongue tie snips are carried out.

If you can't get hold of anyone at the hospital, try your HV for local information on support groups, or call one of the national helplines, numbers here.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge/info will be along soon for you

oh, and I doubt that you are doing anything wrong ; sounds like you have done all you can in really difficult circumstances and preterm babies are harder work than full term babies from what I've read.

hang in there, it will come good with the right support.

for the colickiness, try laying him on his tummy, hanging over your arms (like a leopard in a tree iyswim?) or over your lap and rub his back in clockwise circles or pat gently. these were the only things that settled my colicky DC3.

worrillo, great your baby is thriving. You can certainly start bf again but you will need motivation and persistence...call the bf lines for help and discussion on this. First step will be to express at least 8 times in 24 hours with lots of opportunities for your baby to take from the breast direct, too.

I am not sure about the wind thing. I don't know you can tell by looking at a baby if he has wind in his tummy, and spending ages trying to wind him may be a bit pointless. Again, something to discuss in real life, I think.

Are you certain it's wind? Only I spent the first few weeks of my son's life trying everything to get wind up, as he seemed so unsettled and uncomfortable between feeds. Everyone who saw him commented on it, how he seemed so uncomfortable etc.

He was a terrible sleeper too, dozing off then jolting awake for hours with his arms and legs flialing around.

Then the penny dropped and I swaddled him - it was like flicking a switch and he was transformed - he slept for 7 hours straight the first time in one of these

I have no experience of prems and could be barking up the completely wrong tree, but it might be worth a try