Bedtime bath v feeding on demand

[toomuchtooyoung]

Hi all

Would really appreciate some advise re my 4 week old DD. I'm EBF and have been feeding on demand, working out at every 2 hours during the day and 3 at the most 4 at night. Some evenings she's had a feeding frenzy which I assumed was a growth spurt and others a couple if feeds and straight back to sleep.

Everyone comments on how alert she is, even since birth, and can be wide awake for hours at a time, happily taking in the world with no crying.

But she's also very windy, and we do have a lot of trouble getting it out of her which can lead to a lot of crying

Yesterday though she was awake from 0830 and had maybe three 20 minute sleeps until 8pm that night. The only reason she went to sleep was after we'd given her a bath and she plain wore herself out from crying.

Not quite sure what my question is here, but just looking for some experienced thoughts. Should I continue with a nightly bath to get her to sleep, or continue feeding on demand?

Please be patient with me, first time mum and still finding my feet!

Hiya, Congrats on your baby and for B/feeding this far :)

The evening feed that goes on forever is called cluster feeding, best option probably is to give her an early bath to calm her and then feed he until she's top full.

If she's very windy have you tried Infacol? It can be a real lifesaver if you have trouble getting the wind up.

Hi there, been on infacol for a few weeks now, doesn't seem to do much tbh. Have had a few successful times of giving infacol 10 mins before a feed and keeping a dummy In waiting for it to get to work. Other times there's no difference. There doesn't seem to be any consistency I can work with - perhaps I'm expecting too much!

Didn't think newborns were supposed to be bathed everynight? They don't need it and she's not a great fan of being basted all the time with olive oil!

the bath is useful because it works as a sleep aid/trigger. I bath mine at the same time every night, give her a feed, then put her down to sleep in a dark quiet room. I am trying to establish night and day for her.

i think that it is a good idea to bath daily because they have been in a nappy all day with urine in it. Also, it gives you a chance to have a good look at their skin all over. My DD enjoys it, she kicks about in there, i imagine it gives them a sense of freedom to be rid of the nappy and clothes for a few minutes.

you can still feed on demand whilst establishing a bedtime routine.

TMTY, you are right that its not reccomended for newborns to be bathed daily because it dries out their skin and very new babies have difficulty regulating their body temperature, however after the 1st few weeks its generally considered to be fine and as onedge says it acts as a sleep trigger, why the olive oil btw? If you are going to do a bath every night it can be just plain water which should not be too drying :)

The only advice I can give you on the infacol is it is accumulative so if used before every single feed you usually start to see an improvement after a few days, also listen very carefully when she is feeding, if you can hear a clicking noise then she may be taking in air with the feed. Around 4 weeks I found it helped all of mine if I took them off after the 1st let down winded them for 10 -15 mins and then continued the feed. It could sometimes take that long to get the wind up that they had taken in in the first (frantic gulping) on the let down.

HTH

You can feed on demand and have a bedtime routine. By about 6 weeks I'd noticed that my ds tended to have his longest stretch of sleep from about 9ish, so we started doing a bath at 8.30ish then a feed in the darkened bedroom. That was the only set feed of the day.

Hi, our DD was very windy, and also did the cluster feeding for the first few weeks, I dont have much to add, all the advice above is really good, but we found a warm bath, flannel on tummy and a massage (clockwise, circles around her tummy after with a little bit of oil did help bring it up (or down, actually!)

Also we saw a cranial osteopath, and they showed us ways of helping her bring the wind up.

I thought the wind would never end, she would groan and cry with it, but it did eventually, and it seems like nothing now, thinking back!

Our DD has a bath every night now, after a feed, then settles herself in her cot. As for sleeping through the night...well, not so much...

Hi. We started a bath time and bed routine with DS from about 5 weeks (bath then BF in the darkened nursery) but, as he was really colicky, he usually ended up back downstairs on us til about 9pm when he'd fall asleep. Around 8 weeks we then decided not to bring him back down. Cue lots of running up and down the stairs resettling him! But he slowly improved and I really think the routine helped, even though it was very hit and miss to start with. HTH

Well what we thought was wind progressed over the weekend and yesterday the doc diagnosed mild reflux and has given me some infant gavison. Having an interesting time trying to combine that with breastfeeding.

Just 5 sachets later and she's much better and slept for over 5 hours last night. She also seemed a lot more satisfied after each feed by just having a slightly fuller tummy

Will see if it lasts! Have had to abandon all attempts at a bath since Saturday when she started being sick and becoming rigid with pain. Will try again tonight

Glad to hear the gaviscon is helping, are you giving it to her in a syringe? At least theres no need to steriise!

Have had to resort to mixing with a bit of breast milk and giving it in a bottle towards the end of a feed and then straight back on boob - any other combination and it just came straight back out again. Poor wee thing, hate seeing her in pain

Because of this we're no nearer to trying to establish some kind of bedtime routine

Will have to try again when things have settled down, one step at a time

Thanks for all your thoughts though, much appreciated by this first timer

Honestly, at four weeks they don't really do routine yet, and the unsettled behaviour and cluster feeding is just something to be gone through. I know it seems awful, but the one thing that would have made my life more bearable at that stage was if I'd let go of the conviction that there was a simple answer I just didn't know. It's just a hard time. Every time I did something that meant mine slept, I'd superstitiously repeat the behaviour - but it'd never work again.

I'd concentrate on the breastfeeding relationship, muddle through the cluster feeding and worry about bathtime and routines later on. You're doing a great job, but one step at a time is the way to go.