Giving advice to first time mother on Gina Ford routine and comforting

[speedymama]

My friend gave birth 12 days ago to her first baby. She had telephoned me for advice because like with all first time mothers, she wants to do her best.

The first issue is to do with getting the baby into a routine. She is trying to do the GF method but baby is still waking up at night for its feed (when she called me the baby was 8 days old). I told her that she needs to give it time and that it could take several weeks to establish a routine (it took me about 4 months with my twins).

Secondly, the baby is using her breast as a comforter. The baby tries to put her thumb in her mouth but always misses. The mother does not want baby to suck its thumb because she'll have trouble stopping when she is older. I told her that if that is the way the baby will receive its comfort, then let her suck her thumb and help her by putting her thumb in her mouth. DT1 is a thumb sucker and I use to put his thumb in his mouth when he could not do it.

This is the first time I have given advice to a RL new mother and I hope my advice will help her rather than create problems for her in the future. What do you think?

Babies do have rules and logic to them - it's just that no-one in the history of the human race has ever worked out what they are

Actually, seriously, newborns have their own logic, and once you grasp that, life gets a LOT easier.

Can you get her to go back to basics in the way she thinks about the baby?

eg, Here's a little person who until very recently was being fed continuously, 24/7. Learning to cope with getting a lot of food all at once, then nothing for a while is a big adjustment. If baby wants to feed little and often that's exactly what you would expect. Same thing with being cuddled/comforted.

A baby who wants to feed/suckle all day and all night isn't a problem to be solved - they're just doing what they're used to and what they sense is best for them.

The only issue is a practical one - ie that the baby's mother can't BF all day and all night or she'll go insane from lack of sleep. So, she needs to work out how she can get a little more sleep. For me that was swaddling, someone else to walk the baby outside, and learning how to feed and sleep at the same time.

AND - crucially - learning to switch off and fall asleep immediately you get a chance, and not being afraid of going to sleep because of the unpleasantness of being woken when you're tired. I used to think of it as getting as many minutes as I could, even 1 minute better than nothing.

You sound like a great friend, speedymama.

Oops, and a sling. Has she tried a sling?

Doesn't help with the sleep, but at least she can go for a little walk or go and fetch herself some toast when she wants to, instead of being glued to the sofa all day.

oh yes sling
can be a lifesaver
welliemum has said lots of what I'd like to say, but wrestling with my own baby right at the moment (think he's started teething )
glad the father is being helpful

I think your friend might be suffering from the same thing I did, as MrsJC said about having 'degree & MSc'. I had 6 A's at A level, starred first in my degree, international scholarship to do my MFA... Then I had a baby and tried to be the 'perfect mother' - read lots of books, because that's how I'd always excelled before, and tried to do it all 'by the book'. You can guess how that one worked out! DS clearly hadn't been reading the same books

Not that academic people can't be good parents, we just have to learn to let go of the 'book learning' and of the desire to have the correct answer all the time.

For me it wasn't GF - I was more towards attachment parenting (which I am not dissing, I just tried to be 'perfect' and I think if you try to be perfect under any system with babies you're riding for a fall) Luckily I was surrounded by good people - and it sounds like you'll be one of these good people for your friend - who told me to give myself a break and just try to enjoy my baby. If your friend is like me it will be a big adjustment, with quite a bit of anxiety along the way. But I think I'm a better person for it, thanks to my DS!

speedymama - I did the GF thing both times and I can absolutely guarantee that your friend has mis-interpreted the advice (as did I first time around). You can tell her that if she wants a routine to try again aroung 8-10 weeks, it seems to slot into place well around then and I think that's the satge at which the NCT recognise that a routine (not necessarily GF's) can be good to get into.

If the baby is constantly unsettled and is definitely eating and sleeping enough (my rule of thumb is no more than 2 hrs solid awake at this age or they're overtired = lots of crying) you could consider looking into colic and reflux. For more info see www.kellymom.com.

Hope things improve - I reckon the best thing you can do is reassure your friend that they will

Babies of 12 days do not have the coordination to try to do anything - they are just waving their arms and legs.
But this baby sounds v sucky and I would recommend a dummy. For some babies - not all - sucking is a need as urgent as hunger. I'm so so so grateful I gave one to my ds who has turned out to have aspergers and still puts everything in his mouth aged five. My dd, totally different, never wanted a dummy, never put anything in her mouth except food.

Actually, I'd recommend a dummy AND endless breastfeeding for the next few weeks. I think imposing a routine on a baby of less than a couple of months old is setting yourself up for miserable, depressing failure.

I suspect she may have an old copy of the very first edition of TCLBB which did contain some advice that I, personally, found shocking. Either that or she's misinterpreted it due to lack of sleep.

Have you introduced her to the joys of MN? Better advice and support here than you'll find in any book.

Thanks for all your advice. I had not thought about a sling (I had twins so thought never entered my head) so will suggest that to her.

The mother is starting to relax now and enjoy spending time with the baby. However, she has now said that she won't leave the house for the next 3 months because the baby is constantly on her breast and she can't be bothered to go out. I'm keeping an eye on her to make sure she does not slide into PND. Will also offer to go out with her once her mother goes home.

Get her to babymoon speedy! And pop round with meals so that you can "check" on her. You're a brill friend!

Speedymuma, you sound like the nicest friend. I love you . Can I be your friend ? You are so caring, thoughtful and the lemon drizzle cake....well, that just tops it, really

Glad to hear things are better with your friend, speedymama. As for not going out - hopefully she'll realise that a nice walk with the baby either in the sling or in the pram is a great way of getting baby off to sleep and giving you a bit of a break and time to yourself as well. I spent many happy afternoons in the park when DS was tiny, just wandering around while he slept. It made me feel a lot calmer and more able to cope as I did have PND. Think I would have gone completely mad if I'd never left the house!

I would recommend a sling also. Ds used to feed every 1.5 to 2 hours during the day, but every 3 hours during the night until he was probably about 10 weeks. It was pretty exhausting, but that was just him. He also cried quite a bit in the first few weeks and sticking him in a sling - which dh could also wear - helped no end... If she goes down this route, I would recommend a soft wrap sling. I had one called Kari-Me.

She has a brand new pram. It is still in the wrapper and baby is now 19 days old. She needs to leave the house, even just to get some fresh air and change of scenary.

Speedymamma

I haven't read all of this but most of what I've seen seems good advice. The one thing that did strike me was the not wanting to sleep as she would just have to wake up again.

I had quite bad pnd and a lot of this rings bells. I really didn't heed the advice to sleep when I could because:

1 I was hating the whole newborn thing so much that despite being exhausted and needing to sleep I felt that if ds was alseep I had some time to myself and couldn't bear to waste that by sleeping .

2 I wanted proper sleep and anything less seemed not worth it (madness I know)

I was definitely trying to control things and to work things out with my head instead of my heart (something I have a tendency towards anyway)

Your friend may be fine but I really would keep an eye on her for signs of pnd over the next few weeks.

Also I did breastfeed but tbh I never really got comfortable with the breastfeeding in public thing - in fact I would often get mildly hysterical about it - and this from someone who breastfed for 2 years, 6 months of it exclusively and on demand. You may find she is quite worried about this.

Friend was on telephone last night. She has broken down.

The lack of sleep and constant breastfeeding is taking its toll. I won't be able to see her until weekend but her DM is going to spend more time with her. She feels a failure because I had twins and to her, I had no problems so she does not understand how she cannot cope with one baby.

This is so heartbreaking.

oh the poor thing
this kind of happened to me (and I feel perilously close to it happening again now my 4 month old has reverted to newborn behavhiour during the day, which the 2 yr old is not appreciating) and I constantly felt everyone was coping SO much better than me and therefore I must be useless. Of course, further down the line I discovered that a lot of them weren't coping brilliantly but we were all hiding it. I wish I'd known that at the time.
So in a way the fact that she's confided in you is a good thing
hopefully her DM and DH and you can rally round and make sure she eats properly etc. Does she have a symathetic doctor? I so wish I'd seen mine sooner. I think the really vital thing is finding people to talk to who are in a similar position, but that's so hard. often it's easier on here where everyone isn't neccesarily trying to keep up appearances.

ah I really feel for her

Poor thing. I completely agree that most people are at sea (unless they have a nanny/mother's help to help out!) and just hide it very well. I remember saying to one of the girls from my antenatal class that I sometimes felt like just walking out on ds and leaving because it was so hard. When I told her that, she said she felt the same way.

I think there is so much pressure to be seen to cope and the reality is it is bl*ddi hard work and no-one can prepare you for the sheer relentlessness of the first couple of months. Please do let her know that there are lots of other women out there who are struggling equally. I still maintain that you have to write off the first two months after which it starts to get easier...

See if you can persuade her to visit her doc in case it is PND rather than normal new mother stress. Poor woman.

oh speedymama, your poor friend
she really needs break doesn't she...constant breastfeeding i so exhausting, i hope she's eating enough to keep her strength up. i was always so hungry when i was bf-ing but if you always have a baby in your arms it can be hard to find the time to look after yourself...

would it be possible for you to take the baby out of the house for a little while so she can eat/sleep?

would she consider giving the baby one bottle a night? i did this and it was a blessed relief I can tell you...dh gave dd the bottle so I could get some rest and it helped alot.

and sometimes you have to be persistent with a dummy-dd was not keen at first but i just could not deal with constant suckling, I really couldn't so I kept trying...in the end she would sometimes take a dummy and it would help her get off to sleep. I used it occasionally until hse learned how to suck her thumb, but that didn't happen until she was 3 months.

also, taking dd for a walk in the sling helped too-she always went to sleep really fast. in complete contrast she used to scream her head off in the pushchair.

You're a lovely friend sm, I'm sure you're helping her alot

speedy, I haven't red the rest of the posts, but I really do think it's too early to try at 12 days to get a baby into GF's routines. I say this as a fan of her sleeping routines, which I believe do work but at a later stage. I think for the first few weeks, she needs to relax, and feed her baby on demand, without worrying about the clock. I had 2 mantras with both my DSs:

1. feed on demand, and at least every 3 hours from start of one feed to start of next during the day, and

2. if they've been awake longer than 1 1/2 - 2 hours, they need to sleep or they become v. over tired.

I would wake the baby somewhere between 7 and 8 am to start the day, then feed, then let the baby sleep, and wake her for another feed 3 hours later, if she hasn't woken for a feed already by that time (bet she has!). My memory of newborns is that for the first 6 weeks at least, all they do is feed and sleep, and if you try and feed every 3 hours during the day, you might get a longer stretch at night.

I found the most useful bit of the GF book was the chapter on Sleep, not the chapter giving the routines. It's easy to get obsessed by that bit. If you read and understand what she's saying in the sleep chapter, it all makes much more sense.

Nowhere in her book does GF say that a baby should be any where near sleeping through at 2 weeks! Also, nowhere does she say that you shouldn't comfort your crying baby at this age - she suggests that you listen to your baby when she first cries, and maybe wait a couple of minutes to see if they resettle, and if not, then respond. A baby's only way of communicating a need at this age is to cry. Her suggestions about leaving a crying baby are for much older babies.

Oh, and about the thumb - the day both of mine managed to get their own thumbs in their mouths was a day for massive celebration - it meant they could begin to soothe themselves. Neither of them does it anymore. DS2 had a dummy too until he found his own fingers to suck. He had it for about a month until he was 16 weeks or so, and hasn't needed it since.

You sound like a great friend, I hope your friend is beginning to cope ok - it is so tough with a tiny baby and all those self-imposed expectations.

speedymama, I'm glad her mum is going to spend more time with her too, that's good- my mum was a great help to me in the early days with my dd.

Another thing-when dd was tiny and I was having trouble coping, someone from the local baby clinic popped round a couple of times just for an hour or so so i could eat something/have a shower or whatever, and that was a help too (she wasn't a health visitor as such, maybe a healthcare assistant, something like that?). I don't know what your friend's local set-up is but could be worth contacting the HV and seeing if they offer anything like that.

I so rememeber that feeling and it is soooo awful. I tried imposing a routine in the first weeks and failed miserably as it just wasn't realistic but tbh telling someone who wants to be in some sort of control to completely 'go with the flow' is a bit like telling someone who can't walk to run a marathon.

What she probably needs is some way to loosely structure her days - even if it doesn't always work out she can have some idea of how a day will go. I think Henriettahippo's advice is really good for that. Once I realised a routine wasn't going to cut it I gave up but I also had a couple of rules (when I say rules - that was the theory though it disn't always work out that way!!)

1 Don't feed more often than every 2 hours -from the beginning of 1 feed to another (ds took an hour to feed so I felt that was OK)

2 don't feed any less than every 4 hours (ha if only I'd ever got to that) and wake the baby if necessary to do that.

3 If it has been less than 2 hours since the beginning of the last feed and ds is clean, not ill and is still crying (as was often the case) try and encourage sleep. I did this by swaddling and shusshing (alla Harvey Karp - happiest baby on the block, cuddling etc.

3 Ds had one bottle of expressed milk most days from about 3 weeks old until he was 4 months old which dh used to give.

When people kept telling me that I should just do what the baby needed and not worry about anything else it made me feel like an even worse mother because I wanted some sort of control back - just a bit and I resented not having any at all. Then I felt awful because I wasn't 'putting the baby first'and a downward spiral happened.

I think having a few structures to how I did things helped me cope a bit. However I still found it all very very hard.

Also - 'do what the baby needs' was almost impossible for me as I couldn't work outwhat he needed. In fact I remember saying ' Well I've no idea what he wants' on a regular basis until he was a year old. I really never did that 'oh that is his hungry/tired cry' that some mothers seem to be able to until he was much much older. (ober a year old)

Structure is really important for the mother but not the baby in the early days IMO. What worked for me is to put myself in a routine. I would get dressed, do the washing, go out to the shops at the same time each day. This broke up the day and prevented the feeling of panic each morning. I had the structure that i needed and ds ate and slept (mostly ate) when he wanted to.