Help with newborn

[Mrsmch123]

Mrsmch123

Hi my baby is currently 4 days old and is taking between 20 and 50ml per feed. We have to wake him to get him to eat as he is a little jaundice. Which we do roughly every 3 hours. We need to strip him at times to get him to take his milk.I'm concerned that he is going to end up dehydrated esp as it is getting hotterl. Nappies have been wet/dirty. The nappies aren't heavy but the indicator shows me they are wet. I'm a ftm as you can probably tell!does this sound normal?x

I had the exact same thing when my baby was that age - he is 11 years old now and almost as tall as me.

I remember being really stressed trying to wake him to make sure he had enough milk. It was so hard to wake him as he had jaundice - even stripped off, he would be in a deep sleep and would only seem to drink a tiny bit.

In my case the public health nurse was weighing him every few days to make sure he was putting on weight. She always used to ask about wet nappies as they at least showed he was drinking something.

Both of my children were jaundiced after birth (my second child is 7 weeks old so this was recently!) You're doing the right thing by waking little one for feeds and stripping them off to try and wake them more. Natural light is also good for jaundice (my sleep deprived brain can't remember the exact science behind this but it's something to do with light helping to break down toxins?) We were advised both times to put our children in a bouncer in a well lit room throughout the day.
It can be stressful, especially when it's your first but it sounds like you're doing everything you can 😊 If you're worried definitely get in touch with your midwife so that they can come and test bubba's bilirubin levels. They can definitely do this at home as my daughter's was done a few weeks ago. Hope the jaundice clears quickly! X