Please help with bottles and crying with my 7 week old!

[Duemarch2021]

Hello, i have a 7 week old baby and she wants a feed every 2.5 - 3 hours... she is now taking about 6oz which the health visitor says is too much.. she weighs about 13lb now and is getting so chubby but she just constantly cries and gets worked up if i try and make her go longer..

I am struggling with making her feeds up in time at night as once she wakes up she cries loudly! none stop until she has the bottle which can sometimes take 45 mins to make up and cool if i do it the way thats suggested (let kettle cool for 30 mins so its 70 degrees) .. she also has reflux (we think) so has got baby gaviscon as prescribed by gp which thickens her milk and cant use hungry baby milk with it... she also has momenys where she screams and her face goes beetroot red then she stops breathing for about 5 secs and goes blue.. does anybody else see is happen with their baby? (Shes been checked by A and E who say they think its just wind.. HELP please..

2½-3 hours is normal at that age.
Could you try ready made formula at night and then you just need to pour it into a bottle? Or make a bottle up with hot water and chill and put on the fridge. Warm to feeding temperature before giving it to your lo.

Some people use a perfect prep machine for speed at night. They didn't exist when my 2 were babies.

It’s definitely not too much formula. A baby doesn’t know how to be greedy, if she’s hungry she’s hungry, don’t listen to the HV on that front.

We had a prep machine for my DS and bottles took two minutes. You do have to clean/descale them quite a bit though. You can also make bottles up and put them in the fridge, my HV said that it isn’t against advice it’s just not preferable. She told me they could go at the back of the fridge for up to 6 hours and are best put in after making. So you could do that?

Honestly a prep machine was the best £60 I’ve ever spent. When they get a bit older a drop bottles/ cows milk it’s much easier.

My health visitor had no issue with 6oz for my baby at the same age who was a similar weight to what yours is now,I d avoid the hungry baby milk as it could mess with her stomach. Did you ask about anti reflux milk or did they go straight to the gaviscon? You could try a prep machine and see what happens

Babies are supposed to be chubby! Barring rare metabolic disorders it's virtually impossible for a baby to be overweight while they are still on breast milk or formula only. It's when other foods/drinks are introduced that you have to be more careful.

I use a prep machine and find it great - very quick. It's the Tommee Tippee one. Only issue is the bottles come out a little cooler than DD likes, so I usually pop them in the warmer for 5 mins before feeding. Lets the froth dissipate too. But if DD is crying hungry we skip that step. As pp have said it's also okay to make bottles up in advance and store in the fridge provided they were initially made with hot water and went into sterilised bottles.

If she has reflux, she’ll want to feed more often as it soothes the pain. It sounds like the gaviscon may not be working for her, maybe go back to the GP and ask for something else?

You also don’t have to wait 30 minutes for the water to cool, you just have to make it up within 30 minutes as after 30 minutes it’s no longer 70 degrees. I’ve always premade my DD’s bottles, made them up with boiled water, flash cooled them and stored in the fridge and used within 24 hours... warmed them up in a bottle warmer.

Perfect prep machine 100%. Game changer for making bottles, particularly in the night. We used to have one downstairs and one upstairs and just took the bottles and pre-portioned pots of formula upstairs each night. It made it so much quicker.