February 2019 babies - thread 1

[Celebelly]

Let's go ladies! Share your tales of cluster feeding, cracked nipples, poo explosions and sleep deprivation!

@lanalawr she has made her weight back at 3 weeks. She has gained 400g in a week! She’s now around 200g above her birth weight. She was crazy hungry for 2-3 days which I guess was a growth spurt, but when we try and stick to the 90mls/3oz servings for 2-4 week olds she’s clearly still hungry and has started having the 4 week size bottles at 23 days old. We are feeding on demand (she has a bit of breast milk too - maybe 15-30 mls when I can). She doesn’t always finish the feeds but I struggle to know whether we just need to do more to settle her after feeding rather than feeding her more.

Emma slept for a 4.5 hour stretch last night. Felt like a new woman this morning! Amazing how that suddenly feels like so much sleep!

Emma had lost almost 12% by day 3 but was above birth weight again by day 11. It's hard not to obsess about weight but my HV is quite relaxed about it thankfully!

@powkin don't worry. Max is currently knocking back between 10 and 12 bottles of formula and ebm every day although he is on the 99.6th centile!! My friend works as a nutritionist for cow and gate and said to feed on demand. If their overfed they will bring it back up. My health visitor says it's too much but if we try to reduce it he just screams his head off. She also said to continue feeding on demand so not sure how that works!!!

For those of you struggling with wind or colic we have just started to use dentinox colic drops in the evening. They seem to be working and he is much happier at being put back into his cot after his nighttime feeds.

Dentinox Infant Colic Drops, 100 ml, Pack of 6 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XYJ5JTW/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_eCTECbVZ25ZZC

Gah we’ve had awful nights - lady Jane won’t settle from about 11pm and last night
It was 2am before she finally settled. Exhausted ain’t in it! We also have our first bottle for over a week today and she rejected it initially! Eek - deffo need to ensure we keep it going.
Birth weight - she was 300g over by day 15, so we’re just EBF now and she’s fine and looks so much better.

Please let tonight be better. Have managed solo bedtime again but I have cooking for a family lunch to do tonight and mass tomorrow am so would like a decent (ie 3 hour block!) I’d sleep!!

We've tried the hot water bottle and a swaddle blanket to keep his arms from flailing. Haven't got a dream sheep. With DD it took weeks for her to settle in her basket so I'd like it to happen sooner.

We do tend to hold him as he sleeps in the day. Mostly to keep him safe from Dd though.

Went for a walk with her earlier and put him in the sling. Lovely but I'm sore now!

My Emma is ff and we've just moved up to 6oz bottles as was finishing 5oz.

I've always been told that babies only take what they need and are not gready xx

Thanks all. Just let DH go for a sleep and have had a frantic few hours. Stupidly let her get super comfy next to me and when I had to move and put her on her play mat we had poosplotion followed by epic screaming. Tried breast feeding to see if it calmed her down but no, further screaming! We’ve got the perfect prep now so that makes it a bit faster! They just brought out a new model so the old one was £55 on amazon.

She is getting harder rather than easier to settle which is tough. Might try the hot water bottle trick tonight!

We’ve given up trying to go to sleep before 1.30am @Since2016 - one of us stays up with her, it seems to be a waste of time before then! Just makes us both tired and grouchy. Having said that I did the late shift and then half slept through her 4am so slept from 2-8 which was incredible! I’m hitting a wall now but couldn’t make dinner which DH slept so now hungry and tired! Every single mum deserves a medal, I literally have no idea how it’s possible.

Sleeping just all seems a bit random. Night before last wasn't great as she was up every two hours or so, but then last night she was asleep from 9.30pm to 1.30 am then again from 2 till 6.30. She's been asleep a lot today though so I'm not expecting a great night! Just never seem to know what we'll get every day! Yesterday she barely slept during day, whereas today she's been asleep most of the day and just awake for feeds and the odd staring about. She was a bit snuffly this morning so hope she isn't coming down with something!

Shifts are a good idea @powkin - only prob here is that someone needs to get up to supervise DD1 and I’m bf so sadly DH not much help.

Have managed to make two lasagnes and am back feeding the milk pig again. Does anyone have any recs for BF baby dummies? Tried the TT newborns - spits them out. She has dr browns bottles - do they do dummies? I’m not generally a fan but a little desperate now!

White noise on spotify here too - helps a tiny bit!

Anyone else's lo really snuffly / phlegmy? Emma is nearly 5 weeks old now and it's been like this for quite a few weeks now. I took get to the docs a few weeks ago and was told she's fine.
She doesn't have a temperature and doesn't seem unwell etc but she's thrown up milk today twice, (quite a lot, not just spot up) and I can see there's phlegm in it

Is this still 'normal' at nearly 5 weeks? Sometimes in the night she sounds to be struggling (although I think it does sound worse than it is for her) / very snuffly.

Anyone? Xx

She’s much more put downable during the day... annoying!!

Philips Avent soothies are really good for newborns. We got one for Emma and she has taken to it well. It's meant to mimic nipple feeling more.

Thanks @celebelly will give them a go!

@Yakadee yes Erin has been very snuffly- she sounds like a weird gremlin at night especially, although she seems a bit better today. It was so difficult to sleep through as it sounds so alarming. I don’t know if it’s partly the dryness of the house with the heating on or the formula or a cold or all three! You could try a humidifier to see if that helps, I have one but haven’t tried it yet. We’ve also bought saline nasal spray and give that before each feed and that helps too.

@powkin - I've been going with piglet but gremlin is it! Haha.

We've tried the saline drops and they haven't done a thing unfortunately. We have a nasal sucker thing (that husband does - can't bring myself to do it 🤢) which does seem to help actually.

We do have a humidifier (for my son who has asthma) but haven't tried to yet - good idea! X

I’d second the saline spray - DD2 has been snuffly for about a week and worse at night, I think she picked up a bit of a cold from DD1. Saline spray helps open up her nose though.

Just found this board after the pregnancy ones.

Our daughter Cecily is now a week old and her big sister has been an amazing help.

Our current issues are keeping up with her feeding. She was 9lb 3oz and has the appetite of a toddler!

So glad she's just here now.

Joining the new thread 😊 baby was born on Monday morning, birth was horrendous, but she's just perfect 💕 started on breastfeeding but it was too painful alongside all the recovery from birth so we switched to bottle last night.

Hope you're all doing well, lovely having the baby here but man this is tough!!

Hi ladies! Congratulations on the babies 😍

@1stTimeTina - my first labour was dreadful so totally get where you're coming from, I promise it'll get easier.

As for baby, I found it got easier as time went on. You get into a routine etc x

Have posted in the infant feeding section but pasting below in the hopes someone will be able to help!

My daughter has been exclusively formula fed (cow and Gate) from birth with no problems. Gained lots of weight etc. However this evening she has started writhing around and crying when feeding sad she'll have a couple of swallows but then start to squirm and cry. She doesn't seem to be too uncomfortable when awake - although when I put her in her crib she woke up after 30 minutes which is unusual for her, but could just be because she hasn't fed enough 😭 she's asleep on my chest now and does keep squirming but not enough to wake her up - not sure if this is tummy pain or hunger or what!

Have tried winding her for ages with no luck, rubbing her tummy etc, but she's still not able to take more than a few mls when she feeds before it getting too uncomfortable for her.
She's having her dummy fine so I don't think it's a mouth / swallowing problem?

First time mum and feeling so helpless about my poor baby 😭

@detachablehoof writhing during feeding can be a sign of reflux. My first suffered badly with it and was very much as you described. Is she being sick? I found his breath smelt slightly acidic and he used to want the dummy as it produced extra Salavis which helped neutralise the acid. We ended up up getting baby gaviscon from the GP which helped.

Hope it's just a one off for you though and that she is better tomorrow. It's so tough when they are in discomfort and you can't help them.

Hellooo ladies, joining you all! My little one was born on Tuesday 😍 natural delivery with episiotomy. Stitches are hard and pain relief is very much my friend, anyone else recovering too?

Little one is doing ok yet to find out his day 5 weight (tomorrow) to confirm. Breastfeeding so expecting a loss. The night times he is just feeding and feeding - only staying on at 12 mins at a time? This usual? (FTM clueless :)