A first time Dad with questions

[dUnKle]

Hi all
Hope ok that as a Father I turn to the forum for some help / advice

Our daughter was 1 month old yesterday (25th)
She was born 3 weeks early by C section having been found to have raised heartrate and then being found to be breached

Since being born she has been back for a couple of overnight stays in hospital.
This was down to her not feeding at home. She was found to be tongue tied (although nothing extreme we are told) and could not take to being breastfed. I went out and purchased pretty much ever make of bottle and teat, but still nothing. We discovered she would only feed using the disposable hospital teats, made by Sterifeed, so I managed to get a 100 of these

Anyway, we went from her loosing quite a bit of weight and only having about 10 to 20 mls a feed (which took about 90 minutes to get into her) to having at least 40 to 50. Since then feeding has come on leaps and bounds, she is now using the Tommy Tippee bottles and number 1 teats and has between 90 and 120 ml a feed ( 3 to 4 oz )

One thing is though she seems to feed too fast for my liking, I know I am probably worrying to much but she is like drain once that teat goes in her mouth and as such she seems to get hiccups a lot and suffers from wind (bottom half worse than the top) - im using number 1 teats and I dont think there is anything slower

Secondly, she was jaundice from birth up to and beyond 14 days, as such she had to have the prolonged jaundice test, after a few return trips for urine catches it was found she has a urine infection which we started to give antibiotics for on Saturday. Since then she has been more sick after feeding and has poor running stools - I presume though this, as in adults, is a side effect of the medication. Her feeding habbits remain the same, she wants feeding every 3 hours, again taking on average between 90 and 120 - again however she seems to feed quickly and is positing more than before

Lastly, and I think you will probably all say "thats Colic" to this one, she has real bad bouts of crying in the evening. Usually from 1900hrs (give or take 30 minutes) which last 3 to 4 hours. She is not a huge cryer to be fair at other times (only really when its feed time and Daddy is too slow with bottle) but in evening she makes up for it, very hard to calm down, goes very red faced. A Dummy can settle her for a short while and a feed for a little longer. Eventually she just starts to close her eyes and with a cuddle goes to sleep (however if we put her down too soon she cries again)

As said from what I have learnt I guess this is Colic, whats best for her in this case ? Would it be made worse by the speed she feeds ? Can we give her anything to help ? Would this be ok with the antibiotics ?

Thanks for time

Hope ok as a Dad I ask

D I didn't want to read & run.. But I need to go feed my DS in a moment. I am not an expert on bottles as I BF, but I think the evening fussiness could be 'witching hour' and it's exceptionally common. My DS did it for a couple of weeks & it is tough! Here is some reading but worth googling it further: www.babysleepsite.com/newborns/newborn-babies-fussiness-evening-why/

We found establishing an evening 'routine' did help eventually. Bath, go to bedroom, turn lights down, create calm evironment etc. good luck!

I have not much idea about formula feeding, but there are some useful tips about how to bottle feed in a more "breastfeeding" style on the Kellymom website here. The emphasis seems to be on slowing down the feed, which might help in your case.

(Despite the slightly odd name, the Kellymom site is a good source of info on breastfeeding).

When our little girl was first born we had hours of screaming in the evening (often ending with a big poo!) our HV recommended infacol and we could recommend it more. She still has a fussy witching hour but it doesn't go on for hours anymore (touchwood). You can get it from boots, supermarket etc and give her 5mls before every feed. It takes about 3 or 4 days to really work. You can also try gripe water to help her bring up wind. I think hiccups is fairly common in babies. Ours always has them but seems to be less and less (she is 3 months now). She also feeds quickly (whether boob or bottle) I like to think of her as an efficient feeder! I hope this helps!

Couldn't recommend it more ..... 5:30am so forgive me!

I'd imagine you're both pretty exhausted and stressed by now. New parenthood is phenomenally hard for many of us. I have 2 dc and still remember the massive learning curve and fears of those first few weeks, so my sympathies.

It may be worth reposting in the breast and bottle feeding section about the bottles. I bf but whenever I've given a bottle to other babies it has gone pretty fast. A friend swore by Dr brown bottles for reducing wind.

Also worth learning tummy massage to help with the wind.

Have a chat with your gp about the upset tummy. It may be that she's had enough antibiotics now anyway.

Oops. Dc2 awake. Got to go...

Might it be worth having the tongue tie snipped? Its a shame you were not offered that at the start.
As for colic, Google "fourth trimester" and "Harvey Karp". The idea is that up till three months babies need the conditions of the womb recreating for them in order to settle. Carrying your baby in a sling close to your body in the evenings might help.

Oh and we downloaded a womb app which also helped her to settle! Recreated the sounds of the womb.

I formula fed and my dd used to drain her bottle in a matter of seconds too - i wouldn't worry too much, just make sure you wind her thoroughly afterwards.

As for the soft stools - yes that's the antibiotics, just keep offering milk more often to prevent her getting dehydrated.

The last bit I would agree with you is probably colic. Try infacol (it worked wonders for me) however if it doesn't then look into Dr brown bottles or the tommee tippee. Anti colic bottles as they may help a lot too.

Good luck and congratulations!!!

Congratulations! It's hard isn't it. ??

Okay my daughter also used to drain bottles like you describe. I found that if I try and slow her down (take the teat out for a pause etc) it actually just makes the wind worse! Try and feed her as upright as possible, and just let her get on with it. Plenty of winding afterwards. They (mostly) grow out of it quite quickly although it seems really hard now!

In terms of the crying in the evening, we had similar but for not as long, so may be colic? I'm not sure for that, what we did was take her into a quiet dark room, cuddles, shhing and a slumberbear, which makes womb noises. That was a godsend, in the end we hung the noise box in her Moses basket and she settled quickly when she heard it.
Again with that, it's bloody hard when you are going through it, but it doesn't last long. Good luck

You sounds utterly she'll shocked - welcome to parenthood!

I think you've had a tough ride (we had prolonged jaundice and readmission to hosp and it's hard), but a lot of what you post sounds pretty normal. That's not to say you shouldn't seek out help, just that your daughter probably doesn't have some hideous and rare condition causing these things!

Re: the wind, could you try a break midway through the feed to burp her? There are also some leg exercises you can do to help squeeze the wind out. I found some via google.

Congratulations!

I used to express milk into a bottle sometimes when baby was young and she would drink it very quickly (and sometimes throw it back up).

We tried slowing down the feed by sitting her up to wind her (one hand supporting her neck/chest at the front, the other rubbing her back) after each, say, 10-20ml. She'd grumble but it did help with the positing.

The evening crying is very common. I'd recommend the Moby wrap sling, very comfy, keeps the baby close and in an upright position and leaves your arms free. We used to walk up and down the stairs with her in it which someone recommended to us and weirdly did work.

Hang in there, you've had a tough start but it does get better.

I think you need to get her tongue tie seen by a professional- it may need to be snipped and could be responsible for her feeding problems.

Contact milk matters for advice. NHS tend to be shite at tongue ties IME.

I had similar issues with bf and had to ff my daughter.

She also drained her bottles quickly. Whilst it might be faster than you'd like it's the way your dd wants to do it.

Another thing no one has mentioned is cluster feeding. I think this is more likely than colic as your dd settles for a short while if you feed her. My dd had what everyone said was 'colic' and screamed every single night. I was feeding to a three hour schedule like you, so hunger didn't even cross my mind.

One night when she was five weeks old I gave her a 2oz bottle out of sheer desperation. She drained it and stopped screaming. And hour later she screamed again, so I gave her another 2oz and she stopped again. This happened twice more until 10pm when she fell asleep and slept through the night for the first time. Nine hours!

Cluster feeding is where a baby feeds a lot, every hour or so during the evening to fill them up for the night. Some babies just do this, and the crying is hunger even though we think 'well they can't be hungry, they've been fed!'

Google evening cluster feeding and give it a whirl.

Forgot to mention...

After our frankly amazing feeding epiphany I mentioned it to my mum, who casually replied 'Oh your brother was the same.' She knew that my dd was screaming all evening so it might have been helpful if she'd remembered that sooner!

Everyone said colic, no one mentioned cluster feeding, and it wasn't colic. It was only once we'd discovered it for ourselves out of sheer desperation that people started saying 'oh yeah, cluster feeding'.

Hi, I can't give any useful advice about feeding but we went through the evening screaming thing with DC2.

It was a phase. I took him out in a carrier (well wrapped up, it was winter!) or occasionally in the pram and walked for about 45 mins every evening for a couple of months.

It meant that he stopped crying and I got out of the house for a change of scene every day, a bit of fresh air and stretch of the legs.

It was actually quite enjoyable, I would also listen to music on my iPod uninterrupted and have a bit of thinking time.

Just remember, this too shall pass, even if it doesn't feel like it just now!

Good luck, you're doing a great job!

Both our DDs had an evening witching hour(s) and we fretted about it with the first one then resorted to practical measures with the second.

We would offer milk (breast) often but not force it, rest of time just put her in the sling and did the "jiggle walk", which every new parent learns to master.
It helped if we took turns holding her so I would do early evening and then DH would do later evening with a bottle while I slept.
Our consolation the second time was knowing it would pass and sure enough now at 3 months evenings are a hell of a lot calmer.

it's very normal for babies to cry for large chunks of the evening - babies evolved to breastfeed so even when they are being formula fed, there will be patterns of behaviour such as cluster feeding that it is best to adapt to.

As someone said - reduce the bottle size in the evening and feed little and often, I think they do all the constant feeding partly for comfort and because babies are probably designed by nature to do that in order to build the mothers milk supply at the end of the day when supplies would (in a BF mother) be low.

My BF son cried and fed for hours each evening in the first few weeks - I read about cluster feeding and fussy evenings on KellyMom website and just took it as normal. I put him in a sling and would go for a walk around tea time to calm him down. Or hold him in the tiger in a tree position - you can look that up online too. I also recommend reading about the third trimester.

It is worrying when they seem upset, but don't jump to a conclusion that there is something wrong - babies are set up by evolution to cry when little as that is their only way to communicate, they want to be held, fed and comforted! It really does pass quickly - by 3 months my son had completely stopped (mostly) the fussy evening bit and would go to sleep at abou t8/9 and stay asleep for the night (apart from night feeds)

Wow

Cheers all, it has been a wild and scary ride so far
I thank you all for the advice, my wife is miles less worried than me (she the one doing all the real hard work) and tends to roll her eyes when I say X, Y or Z

Maybe I am trying to tie diagnosis to the simple fact that a baby will cry and maybe will cry for a long time for no reason. Mummy, whilst tired, seems ok with this, maybe Daddy should just grab his headphones

The cluster feeding thing sounds almost to sum the evenings up
Can you over feed a baby ?

We keep being given all these guidelines, feed every 3 hours (when she was really bad for not feeding and going back into hospital, we where having to wake her to feed and 9 times out of 10 she would not want to wake)

Give her x amount of ML per LB of weight etc

I was so shocked the other week when she downed 4 Oz out of a Tommy Tippy bottle (I purchased one of those TT perfect prep machines and the smallest feed that does is 4) - I was a bit of a wreck when the wife came down thinking that "I" would get told off for giving her too much

Maybe tonight I should just make up 3 2 oz bottles and let her have one during the 3 hours or so she is crying, I guess this way she would not be able to be overfed

Im all for phoning the doctor or taking her to see him, Wife again rolls eyes, cuddles baby and just carries on, so I guess a large part of problem is me worrying :)

She will however phone Doctor later to see if she can take infacol etc whilst taking anti-biotics, just in case that is it

Her nappies are fine (she has runny belly at moment which is going to be down to antibiotics) and I guess if like that and weeing that bit more she is probably trying to get fluids into herself

Aww it's nice to see a dad so involved and concerned!!

It sounds daft but mum's instincts usually know best, if your wife isn't too worries then I wouldn't worry too much!!

At your dd's age 4oz would be about right (the side of the formula box should give a rough guideline) but if baby is hungry then feed her. You can't really over feed as she will just throw up if you give her more than her tummy can take.

Enjoy this time and try not to worry too much!

We are in week 12 now and it seems so long ago. I think we can all promise you the crying will be a distant memory very soon! :)

YY - you can't always "fix" everything with a baby which can be hard if you're the kind of person who wants to make everything better. Sometimes a cuddle will help and there is nothing wrong with holding a baby who is upset.

I don't think you can overfeed a baby as long as you are making up the formula correctly and not adding rusks etc to the bottle. Babies generally feed to appetite-if your dd is draining a 4oz bottle, maybe offer her a 5 oz?
Ds was mad for milk when he was very small, drank way more than he should. He dropped to normal amounts around 8 weeks, and has been following the centile line he was born on. Fussy evenings are awful, but they generally stop at 10-12 weeks. We would walk around the house with ds in a sling . Best of luck.

cheers
will try some of the "hungry" milk and also try rather than one big feed between 7 and 10, to give her 3 smaller ones

The "hungry" milk is not necessary - the NHS advice is to stick to first milk till 12 months. The "hungry" milk has the same calories as first milk but is harder to digest, which aims to lengthen the time between feeds. You shouldn't aim to space out feeds, just feed first milk on demand and try not to focus on the amounts.

Some babies can get digestive upset from the harder to digest "hungry" milks.

For her belly, and because she's had to have antibiotics so young, I can't recommend giving her baby biotics enough! Our DS wasn't gaining weight and had a very watery poos, even by BF standards. Within a week of mixing some in to a bottle of expressed milk every day, his poos had turned more sludgey and he started gaining weight fast. Even without that, I'd give him baby biotics, and subsequent babies will also have them from birth. You can get powder easily by Googling - I think we buy from the Special Health Food store. He's 19 months and still has some every day. Gut health is everything, and your poor little baby has been through the wringer a bit with an early birth and jaundice.

You sound like you're doing brilliantly though. It's so easy to doubt yourself over every single thing in the beginning - I remember being very confused by the simplest things