sleep, posseting, & breast feeding

[LeeandRachel]

Hi,
First post, first baby (29/8/03), following GF (trying anyway). DS sleeps well and feeds well (BF)during the day with occassional posseting & hiccups. However, at night following his 2am feed he takes 2 - 2 1/2 hours to settle down - lots of wind (upstairs & downstairs), hiccups, & posseting. He also usually goes through about 3 nappies in this period which seems to add to his disgruntled state. Trying to avoid broccolli, cabbage, tomatoes, garlic, drinking lots of fennel tea, but he still seems to take a long time to settle after his 2 am feed. 11 days after birth still not regained birth weight (9Ib 4 oz).

Any advice on how to get him to settle quicker after his 2am feed? Also, how do we determine the difference between reflux & posseting?

Very anxious first timers...

leeandrachel
does he sleep well from 6-midnight and when have you scheduled his feeds for that period, perhaps, and i know you are wrecked by this stage of the day, you could try and keep him awake a little longer, the bath as GF suggests helps prolong the evening and maybe he will settle better at 2am,
posseting is quite a gentle throwing up and reflux might have a bit more anguish for the baby? my dd posseted for quite a while maybe up to 4 / 4 and half months, continual napkin on my shoulder, ask your health visitor about the reflux.

as GF says its about the baby getting use to night and day and if he's awake in the night and sleepingwell during the day, you may have to waken him from his day time sleeps to encourage night time.
its hard and its knackering, i keep reminding my dh about it all.

good luck
H

Hello & welcome!

I believe reflux is projectile (you'd know if you'd seen it!!), possetting isn't. Possetting tends to look a lot but a little milk goes a long way.

DS1 took nearly 3 weeks to regain his birth weight so I wouldn't worry about that too much - like your DS he was a chunky one. If he's having lots of wet nappies and lovely mustardy dirty ones, he's fine.

You could try a colic remedy such as Infacol which helps break the wind into little bubbles which are easier to shift and not as painful - maybe this is what's making your DS unsettled at 2am.

Hope this helps!

Posseting is more like bringing a bit back as with a burp for example. Extreme reflux involves projectile vomiting but I don't think you'd be able to diagnose this so early as a young baby won't be drinking enough yet. In dd who had mild reflux (not much vomiting in the early days), she would not settle flat at any time easily although the pattern was not really obvious for several weeks. Perhaps his behaviour is the result of a late afternoon/evening feeding binge ? He is also too young to distinguish night from day and may just have a naturally wakeful period then. 11 days is quite early to expect him to regain b/weight especially when breastfed so don't read too much into it unless he is continuing to lose (You may find useful advice on another recent Breast and Bottle Feeding thread "4 days old and lost 6.6% of birthweight" ).

hope it all settles down soon,

Hi, he sleeps incredibly well between 6.30pm and 2am (woke for feed at 10pm as per GF). And again in morning from 8.30-10am. Why oh why can't he sleep when I need to!!!! But we are probably expecting too much.

Hang in there - it does get easier. Maybe you'll be able to give your ds expressed milk in a bottle before too long so you can go to bed early while someone else does the 10 pm feed. Our ds went through a phase of having exploding nappies just after I'd put him down after his middle of the night feed, so I'd have to change him, which would wake him up, then he's take a while to calm down again.... It passed after a week or so. Hopefully your ds's problems will do too.
Good luck with the breastfeeding too.

Hi LeeandRachel, I know exactly how you're feeling. I'm a first timer too with a 11.5wk ds. We found a double dose of Infacol helped with the colic and wind, which started to ease only about three weeks ago. Also he possets/large vomits after his 6:30/7:30am feed (not following GF) and my HV said that as he had such a good night sleep (only dropped to one 3am feed last week, otherwise it's been two early am feeds since he was born, so you're v. lucky on that front!) he guzzles his food in the morning and over indulges as he's so hungry. As there's no room he brings it back up. Ours ds was also large, 8lb14 and took 4 weeks to start gaining any weight let alone reach his birth weight again.

So possibly as yours is having such a good sleep between 6-2 he's extra hungry in the early hours? Does he take much at the 10pm feed or is it very sleepy?

We also found that the colic/passing wind was a real problem with getting him to settle some nights in those early days (they feel so long ago now!) and the only thing that helped was time.... As they say, things start to improve at 6wks and then again at 3months... so hang in there.

Leeandrachel - it will get better soon. In the meantime....
Do try expressing so your dh can give a bottle at the 10pm feed. Being up for 2 hours at 2am is much easier to cope with if yove been asleep since 8pm. Try to make sure he gets lots of milk at 10pm. Wake him up completely (lights on, clothes off is necessary) and wake him again if he drops of soon after starting to feed. We used to find the 2/3 am feed much better if we'd got at least 4oz down at 10pm.
Now the heresy (I am a GF disciple but adapted slightly) When dd would not settle in the middle of the night, I used to put her in her baby bjorn carrier and walk around our flat. It would take about 40 laps before she went back to sleep properly. I feel it helped with the wind as she was in an upright position, and as she was put to bed the GF way at all other times it didn't cause any bad sleep associations.
This period of middle of the night settling problems lasted about 2 weeks IIRC. Of course we then had other problems, but when you get them there will be somebody here who can help.
Good luck

Hi,
Thanx for the advice, it's good to hear we're not the only ones having problems. Last night was the worst yet, ds was up from 1am until 5:30am, very unsettling for all of us. Going to call into Boots today and try and get some Infacol & possibly SMA glucose syrup (it worked in the hospital). However, another liitle hurdle appeared last night - ds wouldn't take a bottle (tried cooled boiled water to help settle his stomach)which may be a problem as I hope to go back to work in a few months.

When people told us it was going to be hard and would be a huge difference to our lives, we didn't believe them, after all we'd read the books! How wrong we were ...

he probably refused the bottle because it was cooled boiled water - not because it was a bottle!
Don't bother with the glucose syrup - but if you feel he is in pain from colic in the middle of the night do try Gina's sugar water trick.

LeeandRachel, we too had no idea the first few weeks would be that demanding, but it just gets better and better and better! Once that first smile comes in or the first "coo" your heart is going to melt all over again.. it's SO worth it.

BTW, the best advice I picked up was that you can get Infacol prescribed by your GP, which saves a few pounds a week.

It 's a bit early to be worrying that he won't ever take a bottle ! Try again at a time when you are both more relaxed and maybe get dh to do it as the smell of your milk may frustrate ds more.

Is the water a GF thing as otherwise would say not to bother if you are breastfeeding - have you tried giving him Fennel tea before you put him to bed? I presume GF insists that he can't be hungry again after the 2am feed but I'd be tempted to see if another small bf would settle him again.

Hope he settles better tonight,

After so long awake (1 - 5.30) your baby will have been really, really tired and the signs of over tiredness can be the same as colic - the crying can be a baby's way of shutting out stimulation. You probably are already, but keep everything very quiet and dark, perhaps just some soothing music. Remember that some babies do need a bit of a shout before they settle down, especially if they are over tired - and it is okay to let him fuss for a few mins before he sleeps (just be absolutely certain that there is nothing wrong with him, hungry, cold, wet etc).

You must be feeling exhausted - don't do any housework at all and sleep when your baby sleeps. Eat lots of anything you fancy and have lots of cuddles with your ds. I thought the first 6 weeks of our ds's life were a season in hell, but it does get better - honest! Let us know how you're doing.

ps saying sshhhhh, ssshhhh can help soothe a tiny baby - apparently it sounds like the blood wooshing around when he was inside you.

Hi,
We got the Infacol, but apparently the SMA glucose syrup is an hospital thing & Boots don't do it. The bottled water is a grandmother thing, not GF. GF recommends sugar water but not sure whether we can give sugar water to a 2 wk old, GF talks about age being a determining factor. Is 2 wks too young?

Hanging in there. Just about...

leeandrachel
have you tried the bath thing a la GF at 6.30 to keep him awake longer? it might throw the 10/11pm feed but might be better than up from 1-5am.
its very exhausting and upsetting, but it will get better and you'll wonder where the time went.

dont understand the gina ford thing myself. i just let my kids let me know when to feed them etc. maybe try co-sleeping for a wee while, makes night time breast feeds so much easier. avoid eye contact, dont turn the lights on (or just keep them dim), dont talk to him wither, very hard to do i kow as all u want is to talk, gaze at your bubby etc, but it does work for some people. infacol, make sure u give it every feed, it can take a few days to start working properly.
and yup, try to keep him awake more during the day, i always find grandmothers/grandfathers/uncles/aunts etc great for doing this as they all coo over your baby.

Tried Infacol last night... he slept!!!! Well, he woke at 2.40 and 6am but that is fantastic from what he had been doing!!!! He seemed to feed better which probably helped as well. We are trying not to get our hopes up for tonight but fingers crossed...

How did it go?

Had the same problem as LeeandRachel last night,
ended up sleeping with ds on my chest, then putting him in his basket. I've not read much of GF yet but I'm sure she'd say this is a bad thing. But he's only a week old! I have some infacol but wasn't sure whether to try this or not as ds is so young.....

BR

BR
cherish that time with him on your chest, intially he needs that, then work with the GF routines but dont feel it has to be religiously to the T.

Bunnyrabbit, Infacol is inert and is not absorbed by the body, so it can be taken at 1-2wks old. It takes a few days at every feed before you start to notice a difference. We found the burps came up more easily, but to be honest I think time is also a factor, we only started to see the best improvement as he got older (now 12wks, but still has the infacol).

My DS also loved the closeness of slepping on us in the early weeks. We have found it hard to migrate him away from that habbit two months later, but have just discovered he's a definite tummy sleeper during the day and has his naps face down everyday now in his cot. Take it slowly, but if you can get him used to several sleeping positions (your chest, moses basket, carseat, cot etc) it may help in the long run.

Thanks for the tips. I will leave the infacol for the moment and see what happens. As for the sleeping on me and DH, you're right, we love it. So will keep doing this for at least another week or two. Suppose I can always put him in his basket when he's asleep..... if I want to!!

Well, we thought we had it sorted... but of course it couldn't be that simple. The infacol helped and we haven't had any more all night wakenings. However now the problem is DS is now needing feeding every 90 mins to 2 hours! (Previously he was 3 hours between feeds (BF)). I think the breastfeeding is to blame - digesting it too quickly. So I have spent the last few days sitting feeding him all day and night! I am going to try and introduce a formula feed at 10pm and see if he can go a bit longer with that and continue BF during the day. Any other suggestions?

Good for you sticking at it. Sounds as if he is on a growth spurt and it may well resolve itself in a few days. It really does get easier as time goes on.

Are you going to express late evening too, otherwise I fear you will get really full and uncomfortable, especially if he does also sleep longer than previously. You could then store the express from one evening for the bottle feed for the next or for a later date.

hth