June 2018 babies - eat poop sleep repeat

[Embracethechaos]

Hi, couldn't find a June thread. Anyone?
Baby girl
Dob 19th
Born at 36 weeks
She is no longer just poop eat and sleep as she's staying awake longer. Tummy time = sleep or cry. Except once

I'm trying to work out if my baby is more sicky after a formula feed, she has mild reflux but it's improved she now has saliva dribble rather than always white dribble - maybe because I'm getting lax at my regular feedings now she's passed her 6 week health visitor check. We've got our routine gp on Thursday, I'll be booking in for her first vaccinations, not looking forward to that.

Mind if I join?

Girl born 20th June - 5 days early.

She's smiling, enjoying tummy time (seems to have good neck control), sometimes shows an interest in rattles but loves anything soft & looking at herself in the mirror. She's awake a lot more recently and is very content.

She's having 6oz 5 times in 24 hours, sleeps from 7.30-8pm to 6-7am with one feed during the night.

Currently trying to figure out if she has mild colic or mild reflux. We've switched to comfort milk, anti colic Tommee Tippee bottles, use infacol before a feed, sleeps on a slight incline and use 1/2 dose of gripe water if she's upset after checking/solving obvious other possibilities. Seems to be a lot better now.

Got the first round of jabs on the 15th! 3 days before we go on holiday (UK holiday) so I'm praying she'll be ok!

Lovely to read about other babies at a similar age as I don't know anyone with a young child!

Sounds like your doing a brilliant job firsttimemama. I think my bub has mild colic too, lots of burping helps. My mil recommended the incline for indigestion last week so now my dd is in a cot, I'm looking at wedge pillows to buy. My dh had colic as a baby but was breastfed and my mil didn't know what to do when he was back arching and told to lie him on his back when he'd only sleep on his front! My dd is the oldest in our nct (mid July - mid August) as her due date was 12th July and she arrived 19th June. All the other babys so far (4) born after mine were cesarean!

We're also travelling this weekend, holiday to the grandparents. 😊 Good luck, I'm sure it'll be great and your baby will enjoy the change of scenery

Thank you!

I put a pillow underneath the mattress to test it and it definitely helps she doesn't get as much spit up. We were keeping her sat up for 30 mins after a feed and then putting her down but it didn't minimise the spit up.
Also meant that I was wide awake after a feed with how long I stayed up! Now I can feed, wind & cuddle a little then set her down in half the time without the worry of spit up! (Petrified of her choking even though I know she won't).
I'll be getting a wedge pillow now I've saw it works for her :)

Enjoy your travels too!

Can I join?

DD2 was born 8th June by ELCS. I've managed to breastfeed this time round which I'm surprised and happy about. She's currently 10lb 7and got quite bad wind/touch of silent reflux so will only sleep being held or in the sling which isn't great but she's not too bad at night.

Has anyone felt like they're falling into a loose routine? We are nowhere near yet.

I'm the same, burping is much easier now she's awake more! She gets the most sick up during a nappy change when I'm focusing on the other end!

Whenever anyone says she has a routine/we plan outing around the routine she has has recently, we jinx it and routine changes! She does tend to sleep more in the mornings, allthough the past two nights she's slept more in the evenings. We can be quite sure that she wakes up as soon as I'm about to eat!

We've been in a routine of sort for a couple of weeks. After getting through the newborn phase of waking to feed every 4 hours, I then did on demand feeding once OH went back to work & she stuck to the 4 hours generally. So I then decided to make it more of a routine as me and OH feel loads better knowing how she'll be throughout the day.

I try and do the first feed at 7am and last at 7pm, sometimes she needs waking for the 7am and sometimes she doesn't make it to 7pm. Then we still follow every 4 hours but if she wants it earlier then she'll get it! But I agree with PP there's always something that will throw the routine off, past 2 days we've been out all day so it's harder to follow.
At first I was adamant of sticking to it but it's not realistic, I'm now happy to have a general guide to how our day will go!

We have a bedtime routine, bath every other night and feed. Keep room dark, nice relaxing music it white noise playing, soft voices, once she's upstairs she stays up until the morning and she's sleep by 8pm! The morning feed I make a fuss of her so she knows it's time to wake for the day (or an hour for her!). I also tell her everything we're doing.

Also agree she'll wake up when she I'm about to eat finally or have a cuppa!

I'm just response feeding at the minute but I think in a few weeks time I'll try to encourage a bit more of a structure I guess. I haven't breast fed before so I've no idea what I'm doing - it felt like I had more control when I FF DD1.

How are you ladies getting these babies to sleep?? Is anyone putting baby in cot etc while they're already awake and they fall asleep by themselves?

My baby loves to be in bed. She settled well in the self rocking hospital cots so I carried her around in her moses basket a lot 59 begin with as I was too weak and dizzy/hot/lacking in confidence to carry her.. I stopped getting iron tablets for a week after birth and got anemic. When it's cooler she sleeps more on me. We're quite relaxed about sleep routines, play it by ear, but then my baby is very relaxed, she had jaundice diagnosed when she was a day old, ward was crazy busy and I'm on medication in the evening as I had sleep issues in pregnancy so didn't sleep well at all in hospital and we didn't like the evening and morning business, esspesally the 8 o clock handovers.

I put her down drowsy but awake and usually falls asleep within 15 mins, if she's unsettled I'll rock her crib or stroke her forehead and she'll sleep. She does have a dummy but we don't give it her at night because she spits it out and instantly wants it back (she isn't attached to the dummy what so ever unless we offer it to her)

There's been an occasions I've put her down wide awake and had to go the loo or something and she's fallen asleep, I'm sure these have been one offs!

Oh I also swaddle! I never used to and I noticed a huge difference when I tried it.

I tried a dummy once or twice - as a last resort for settling first time and another time as she was half asleep squirming. Both times were unsuccessful and upset her. I also swaddle at times. In the hospital I always swaddled her to pick her up as she had very sharp nails! I tried to feed skin on skin in the hospital but privacy was an issue, along with very leaky boobs dripping all over baby. I've got the velcro ziggy baby swaddle blankets. Their brilliant in this heat as there really thin. Dd kicks off any covers so some mornings she went to sleep in a vest at 28 deg and wakes up cold when the temperature has. Dropped and she's kicked off the muslin square. My baby makes a lot of ah sounds, scream sneezed once and is trying to roll. She rolled from her back to her side before a week old in hospital.

We've got our first slight hint of a routine going now in the last week for night time anyway:
8pm- bath, bring her into dark room, change nappy, swaddle, give bottle, rock in my arms. She usually cries for up to 2hrs but will be asleep by 10pm through to 2.30am which is really good for us and we're getting sleep then too.

Then feed 2.30am back asleep until 5.30am and pretty much awake for the day then!

Feeds every 2hrs until 8pm and might have one long nap during the day around lunchtime and one or two short naps at other stages.

I've got a question for you bottle feeders. The cow and Gate powder says throw away after making. However dd takes her bottles straight from the fridge. She also has up to 4 ozs of cow and Gate a night, after my esspressed from my dh. She often doesn't finish the bottle. The esspressed milk has detailed storage instructions. When my dh falls asleep in the evening, I've made up a bottle and stored it in the fridge for him. This was after a very upset baby waiting for the bottle to cool. Its not realistic to make a feed when she's hungry. How do you do it? How long would you keep it before chucking? My thought is she's mixed fed so has the antibodies to tolerate hours old formula....my family have all breastfed and I got loads of breastfeeding support from midwives too, not so much bottle

I have a perfect prep machine, it only makes bottles 4oz and above.

When she was having below 4oz I would prepare 5 bottles and store in fridge then heat up in a jug of hot water. I know they say to prepare as required but as you say the baby doesn't like to wait! I mentioned it to my HV. They said we're supposed to tell you to 'prepare as needed' but they said as long as you use the formula within 24 hours and keep cold it'll be fine. And my daughter is still alive with no issues!!

When we're out & about I carry a flask of hot water and a bottle of cooled boiled water. Put a little hot water in a bottle, add powder & mix then add cooled water. I believe you can add first stage formula into room temp water and it'll dissolve. I use comfort milk & I've been told it doesn't dissolve in room temp water but I haven't tested it. I find this option the quickest when making up the bottle but the prep before hand is long winded with all the sterilising! - If your only supplementing though I can't see that being much of a problem.

I've never used formula more than half an hour old if she's already had some so I can't comment on that. I don't have any experience with breastfeeding so again I'm not sure (this is why I didn't breastfeed originally but now I'm disappointed I didn't!)

I hope my prep advice is useful though!

Thanks for the prep advice, we have a couple of boxes of starter milk bottles, my dh bought a box when we were in hospital then my dad bought a couple more so we haven't needed the logistics of bottles when out. The 24 hour tip is useful. We make it up with boiling rather than warm water to kill any bacteria in the powder. The shopping centre in my town has amazing breastfeeding facilities and I breastfed out at a sling meet once. I'm sure it will be comviniet when I get the hang of breastfeeding out of the home. It is getting easier - I was carrying my baby upstairs to change after a feed and she latched herself. Lol. I was using more formula in the first couple of weeks but some nights my esspressed was enough. I've been listening to the unmumsy mum on audible during feeds. Baby finds it her voice soothing and it's quite funny and I find it easier to relax as I find it hard to sit still.

How has she taken to the pre mixed? Mine spat the whole thing up whenever we gave it to her (we didn't realise that was making her sick at first as we only used it occasionally). It was the same brand of power that she had also.

I read (on here I think) if you add formula to room temp milk bacteria doesn't have enough time to spread if baby has it straight away, it's already digested. I've always done boiling hot water though.

Everything just takes a little time doesn't it. I'm exactly the same, always looking for something to do! I find white noise sends me to sleep before DD

Gosh @firsttimemamaa you're a more organised woman than me, I can't even think about a routine at the moment!

My little one tends to have a last feed between 9 and 10 and will wake between half 3 and 4 then again at about 7 then the day begins but we just demand feed in the day so a bit all over the place, same with naps really.

Bath time has been sporadic too - sometimes a lukewarm one in the hotter weather to cool down or this morning after a gigantic poo 😅

@Embracethechaos is it worth investing in some ready made vow and gate of its only once a night? It's more expensive but quicker I find. Once opened it can stay in fridge for 24 hours.
We're just moving from ready made to powder (Aptamil to mamia) and I boil the kettle roughly when I think he'll be hungry and fill a flask so that the waters ready straight away as hv said not to use just boiled water but to wait 10 mins so the water doesn't affect the powder. Then stand in a bowl of cold water.
When out and about we'll carry in with the ready made Aptamil, we do use over night too, will keep doing so for as long as his tummy is ok with it.

@meow1989 I've just read your first post, when I fed on demand she was having 30ish oz a day I was shocked too (our bubbas are only a day apart).

I downloaded an app to track her feeding/sleep patterns once I went back to 4 hour feedings it went down to 24ish (currently it's 26-28) compared the days and whenever she had above 24 oz she slept really badly!

I found the app really helpful for finding my feet with the routine. You can track everything! I only use it for feedings, 💩 nappies & her night sleep now. It's called baby tracker - activity log.

The routine will just fall into place, it's hard work to begin with as everybody still wants to come visit and they don't understand your trying to get a decent nights sleep!! 😂. After a talking to from my OH the visits have slowed down or I'll just take her upstairs and apologise but I've got things to do!

@firsttimemamaa did bub not protest at waiting 4 hours though? In the afternoon DS will sometimes want feeding after an hour and a half and even with his dummy I can't imagine how I would stretch him out!

@meow1989 I think it's a natural for her, the midwife said to wake her for a feed every 4 hours when we brought her home. We always had to wake her up, so maybe that's just what she got used to?

If she's showing hunger signs earlier then I'll feed her. When I did on demand feeding she'd sometimes go 5-6 hours throughout the day & it just didn't sit right with me, this is one of the reasons I went back to every 4 hours.

One of my neighbours has a baby a couple weeks younger than mine who was born at 5lb. They was told to wake for a feed every 2 hours and now he's near enough at the weight he should be he still can't go longer than 2 hours. It must have something to do with it surely?

Interesting chat. I feed on demand, but with the jaudice we were waking her every 3 hours, breast express, formula. I'd argue with my dh in hospital because I needed rest in between. One night my baby was feeding off and on with nappy changes. For an hour and a half before sleep so i asked if she had to get up in half an hour, they said leave it a hour. I was getting exteamly confused with sleep deprivation and my dh writing down the plan and timings. So now I feed on demand, I think it works better for breastfeeding as my boobs need time to refill, so dd uses a lot of energy, strengthening that little neck before she sleeps. If she doesn't settle/I'm too hot and sore to feed I'll give her a bottle top up, last time I tried that she got really angry as she wants boob. Her crying makes my boobs produce more milk. I try not to overthink it and relax a bit more each check up which reassures me she's fit and well.