Questions about new-born baby girl

[JoDam]

We have a healthy 5-day old baby girl, and generally, she's pretty good - doesn't cry for hours, and sleeps easily. However, I have a few questions about things that don't seem quite right. Any insight or advice would be amazing.

1. She gets violent full-body convulsing hiccups around 50% of the time after she feeds. These last for around 15 minutes, and although I'm sure hiccups aren't too dangerous, they do feel pretty strong, and can't be comfortable. Is there any way to stop or reduce this? She is breastfeeding and sucks at her own pace so we're not sure how to slow her down.

1. Sometimes her feeding pattern is all over the place. For example, yesterday she went to sleep between midday and 7pm, and didn't wake up or cry once during this time. As a result, she wasn't fed for 7 hours. I'm not sure whether we should be waking her up to "force-feed" her but the midwife said we should feed on demand. Other times, she'll feed, and then be hungry again 1 hour later. Is it usual to be so unpredictable?

1. Yesterday, she slept for 7 hours, so she had a feed at 11am, and then again at 7pm. However, after the 7pm one, she was sick a lot - and the volume of sick led us to think she didn't actually absorb a lot of the feed. She then fed again at 11pm, and 530am, but was sick again after the 530 one. Do babies just get sick sometimes, or is there something we should be checking and maybe doing differently? If she's sick, should we force-fed her again to ensure she's getting some, or should we just follow her lead, so wait for her to appear hungry again?

1. Since birth, she has a habit of occasionally swallowing her own spit quite regularly - it's quite a pronounced swallow, like a gulp. Is this normal, or is this a sign of hunger?

1. Lastly, she sometimes doesn't take to the breast well at all, and will actually lie there crying with the nipple in her mouth! As a result, in order to get some food into her, we've started making up some Aptamil formula milk for newborns. We weren't quite sure how to make the milk, so asked the midwife, and the process below was what she recommended, although talking to friends since, they do a completely different process. What do people think of the steps below - can you see any problems with them?

• Boil the kettle, then pour 1.5 oz into the bottle.
• Put the bottle in the fridge.
• When baby wants to feed, boil the kettle, then pour 1.5oz hot water into the now cooled bottle, which will mix the hot and cold water.
• Add the powdered milk and shake.
• The hot and cold water will mix, and the end result will be the right temperature.
• If it's too hot, dip into a sink-full of cold water until it cools.
• If it's too cold, pour the rest of the hot boiled water from the kettle into a container, then dip the bottle in there until it heats up.

Is that a good enough way of making it? How do others do it - is there a right way and wrong way? I obviously don't want to cause our baby problems!

Thanks in advance,

appreciate people's comments.

Also, as an extra side note, because I've since read another thread on here regarding when to start using a dummy.......our baby does occasionally suck her fingers or ours and we've assumed this is a sign of hunger. Do babies just like to suck things generally?

I don't know anything about formula, but a newborn baby should be bfing 8-12 times in 24 hours, so she should be feeding every 2-3 hours. It is unclear from your post how often she is feeding, but going 7 hours without a feed is too long this young and you should be waking her to feed.

Babies do often get hiccups a lot and they can seem quite alarming, but it is usually normal.

Babies being sick can also be normal, but if you think she is vomiting up full feeds it would be worth getting the midwife to watch a feed and see what she thinks.

I agree about frequency of feeds, at least every three hours certainly this young. Perhaps four hourly in the night, if she's fed well during the day.

Follow the instructions on the box for formula to the letter. Including about not re-boiling water, mixing it too hot etc. I realised that health visitors don't always give great advice & pften contradict each other.

Huge congrats by the way! It's a muddling time & I would really recommend getting a book called 'your baby week by week'. It's brilliant, loads of sensible advice especially for the early days.
Ignore weaning section though, its out of date.

& yes babies love to suck things!

Yes 7 hours seems too long. My ds2 is 10 days old and I was told not to let him go longer than 5 hours, but pref 3-4. This is where 'feed on demand' can be confusing as some babies don't demand enough!!

Also, I'm sure you are aware of this but if it is important to you to keep breastfeeding then you risk damaging the milk supply by giving formula this early. If she is full on formula she will not demand from the breast and the body will produce less milk accordingly.

I'm gonna disagree here and say that my baby girl used to go 8 hours sometimes between feeds in the early days - make the most of it! They're not going to starve themselves if weight becomes an issuer then fair enough, start waking but otherwise trust me it'll be fine! My LO is on 98th centile now!

the right way to make up a bottle: here

I agree with what has been said about 7 hours being too long to go without food for a small baby. if you are breastfeeding she will need to feed every couple of hours and you should wake her up to feed. If you want to breastfeed then this early you need to get her on the breast a lot as breast-milk works on supply and demand. Using formula will interrupt that process and you will possibly find that your supply suffers.

Thistime my baby wanted to go 8 hours between feeds in the early days and it was not fine, she lost too much weight and we were nearly readmitted to hospital. Some babies do starve themselves and need to be forced to feed often enough. A baby who is suffering from low blood sugar will sleep to conserve energy, compounding the problem.

Excessive sleepiness can also be a sign of jaundice.

Lot of good info here, thanks. We have only used the formula milk twice, and those times were because the nipples were sore and bleeding, and the baby didn't like the taste of blood and refused to suck on them (understandably!). In those times, we gave bottled milk to avoid not feeding at all. Her nipples have since recovered and we've breast-fed since with no issues - the supply doesn't seem to have been affected.

It seems like we're going to have to clock-watch and start waking her up around 3-4 hour intervals. We were just waiting for the demand, as we didnt realise some babies may not demand it. I guess it's better to force-feed than starve!

For info - she was 9lbs 9oz when she came out, and by day 3, when the health visitor came to weigh her, she was 9lbs 4oz - the midwife said she is "allowed to lose 10% of her initial weight, and she's only lost 4%" so all seems OK weight-wise at the moment.

She doesn't appear to have any outward signs of jaundice - her colour seems fine, but as I'm sure people have gathered from my posts, this is all very new to us, and it's been very useful to get people's opinions.

So far today, she's fed and not been sick so perhaps yesterday was a one-off.

JoDam, definitely keep an eye on the sickness but it may be that your DD is taking more than she needs when she feeds after a long break, because she's so hungry (at 5 days old her tummy is tiny, so may not be able to hold all the milk she's drinking). The sickness could just be the excess bit - it will look like a lot more coming out than it does going in! If you're worried keep a tub or something nearby and see if you can catch any sickness in it so you have a clear idea of how much is coming back out. It's amazing how much mess a very small volume of regurgitated milk can make.

Sounds liks child was fairly massive at birth so therefore it is normal to lose some weight. Ours was thin at birth despite being long in the body (midwives actually weighed her twice as they couldn't believe she was so light as she was also big/long in length), so she only lost 4 ounces in the first few days and then gained about 8-12 ounces a week basically cos she was so thin when born so couldn't afford to lose any weight asnd was constantly hungry and fed every 30-45 minutes! A fat newborn will normally lose more weight than a thin one though. Unless your family is particularly enormous and you expect child to be similarly so, then I would say this is normal otherwise the child would be a giant by 3 months old!

As long as the child is growing in length and doing lots of wet and soiled nappies these are good signs that she is getting enough. If your supply seems to decrease then waking to feed is a good thing but you cant actually force a child to feed - they will suck for comfort but it is a different kind of sucking and tend to produce more foremilka nd less hindmilk. They may pull away letting the milk just squirt out if they dont actually want it. This is also normal and not a bad thing as it ensures the milk supply is high for when it is needed at a later stage. You may find though that it all settles down to some more regular pattern by week 2 anyway. The routines and patterns of feeding and sleeping change almost daily for the first few weeks though so dont expect any seemigly obvious pattern to last too long!

If you are worried about jaundice or anything else please ask your HV or midwife - they are there to help and they dont mind being called out even if everything turns out to be fine. You can take the baby to your GP practice's baby clinic too, to discuss any worries.

And yes sucking things/hands is normal. It's a comfort thing, and not just due to hunger. Hence the need with some babies to suckle for comfort alone even when they are full of milk. Suspect some of our child's need for constant suckling was in part for comfort, or just the rooting instinct and not just because she was hungry, but it did mean I overproduced milk madly. Once I ended up completely soaking a hand towel and then not knowing what else to do, as it was so messy, just held a cereal bowl up and filled that with one breastful (it just came out and I couldnt stop it) as I fed child with the other breast! Crazy amounts! Yes regular feeding certainly helps increase supply if that's what you want to do.

Has she been checked for tongue tie? A posterior tie can be very difficult to spot for NHS staff.

It could also be reflux, silent reflux or Cows Milk Protein Intolerance. Or, just normal for your DD.

Whatever is going on, you need to get your midwife to pop in. It would be great if she could observe a feed. If not, film one on your phone to show her.

Our DD only had 5 or 6 feeds in 24 hours for the first few weeks so I would say up to 5 or 6 hours - but 7 would make me nervous. If she is sicking up a lot I would want a bit of advice about reflux. And babies like to suck so if you don't want to be a human dummy consider introducing an actual dummy in a few weeks time.

I think you need to stop viewing it as 'Force Feeding' her. I have seen someone 'force feeding' their baby and it was awful (I stopped her and made sure it wouldn't be happening again), you can't really 'Force Feed' a baby if you are breast feeding :) you can regularly 'offer feeds' if you want to.

As she is puking after feeding, which is possibly caused by 'gulping it down' because she is really hungry - I would offer her a feed after 3 hours - see if it makes any difference.

I think you are better to stick to breast feeding alone as well as it will help maintain your supply.

I agree with above re feeding times. If your baby was 5 weeks I'd say lucky you and let her sleep, but at 5 days please wake her at least every 3 hrs in the day and every 4 at night, otherwise she won't get enough milk and you won't increase your supply as you need to. Feed on demand in between.
Dd was 8lb 15oz and needed bf every 1-2 hours initially, timed from start of 1 feed to start of the next. This is fairly normal. DS only came off the breast for about 10 mins at a time for the first few weeks!

Don't worry about the hiccups. Very normal in newborns.

Please ignore what your midwife told you about making up formula, that is not a safe approach. Formula powder is not sterile and can contain some dreadful bugs. Water must be at least 60 degrees when it comes into contact with the powder. With aptimil, you can't use just boiled water as it makes the resultant powder have grainy bits in (I tried!) so you have to either boil a kettle and wait, or after practice temp checking I've found if I poor it immediately into a tommee tippee cup (not using bottles) and leave with the lid on its the right temp after 6 mins for the volume I use. Then flash cool by placing bottle in bowl of cold water.

Many people will say they make up with cooled water and its been fine. This is luck. The unlucky ones are rare but why take that risk.

The powder box can only be opened for 4 weeks too so tbh if you're using it rarely you're probably better off using ready made cartons, which are fine in the fridge for 24 hours after opening.

Congratulations on your newborn OP

Lots of good advice so apologies if I'm repeating

Baby with hiccups, sicky and crying sounds like latch could do with being xhecked by a breastfeeding expert not a midwife who often doesn't have quite the deoth of experience as babues get a bit bigger. Also bourne out by bleeding nipples.

Sometimes babies cry for things other than food -re the nipple in mouth but not feeding she might have wind.

Smalller regular feeds is the way to go, with our big baby we were told one stretch of 5 hours sleep in every 24 but we should he waking to feed 2/3/4 hours. I should add since our sleepy baby was 5weeks she jas pretty reliably slept stretches of 10-13 hours overnight and her weight gain is very slow.

DD1 is very sicky and it used to seem like the whole feed but the midwife made the point that if you spill a bit of water on the kitchen side, it spreads and looks like much more than it actually is. Agree with everyone else though that she should probably feed a bit more often.

When she was really tiny, if she sucked our fingers we figured she was hungry, but now (4 months) everything gets dribbled all over!

Sorry to hijack- my baby is 5 days old too, we are formula feeding and making up bottles as per below

Filling kettle with fresh cold water and boiling

Pouring 4oz of water into bottle and refrigerating

When DD is ready for a feed we take the bottle out of the fridge add 4oz of formula and heat bottle with boiled water in jug from kettle

Are we doing this right

MammaGnomes, your method is not recommended. The formula powder is not sterile and can potentially contain some nasty bugs. To kill the bugs the powder must be mixed into water of at least 70 degrees. Putting powder into cold water will not do the job of killing any potential bugs in the powder. The NHS advice is here and would be well worth reading through thoroughly.

Also, there is more detailed guidance from the WHO here, although it's a long document there is advice about making up feeds at home near the end.

Ooh really? I asked the midwife on day 2 and she said it would be fine to do that! Will def be switching my method from now. - what would I do without MN eh