New parents, just early days with eating/sleeping

[1stTimerMumzie]

Our new baby is 3 and a half days old. Last night was the first at home after two in the hospital. In hospital baby seemed to get full pretty quick when feeding and after being set into her crib would fall fast asleep.

In hospital she spat up a few tmes , maybe up a third of what I had given her.

Since gettin home baby seems to never stop rooting for food, even when she seems to be so full half what she gets is coming back up!

With most of the spews there is mucus which the hospital said is normal for a few days.

When baby appears to be full she gets immediately sleepy just like in the hospital, but if we put her in her basket she starts rooting for food. Holding and cuddling will send her straight to sleep.

Im now doing everything to reduce the chance of spew, sothat she will at least keep down what I give her.

Basically what I am windering is A) is it normal for a baby this age to be rooting constantly for food and not settling after? And B) how long will the mucus spewing last?

Baby is express fed with formula top up.

Sleep last night was almost impossible.. we stayed up until the 1:30 feed and couldnt get her settled after. I tried sleeping for a bit while OH tried to settle her and put her to bed nut it wasnt happening. We basically cuddled baby for a couple of hours then fed again while UH slept. Then woke up to pump, and OH fed baby and after not wanting to go to the crib, she fed some more and went to sleep on daddy's chest while mum slept.

Absolutely normal! But really tough - have a look into the 4th trimester and look up cluster feeding. Kellymom is useful for cluster feeding. I could barely put my baby down the first 3 months! Very tough but totally normal you're doing everything right. There's a thread on here a little further down the sleep board called 'anyone else up with a newborn' and it's a really lovely supportive thread. I recommend you join in :)

This is normal. Night 3 and 4 were the worst with our first baby, she fed all night. Baby 2 wouldn't go in the crib until he was about 2 weeks old. He's 5 months now and it's still an effort to get him to sleep anywhere other than snuggled up to me, but once in a deep sleep we transfer him.

Rooting might just be a very strong sucking reflex, hav you tried a dummy? Can be useful once you're sure the baby has had a good feed.

Baby is express fed with formula top up

So baby is being exclusively fed from a bottle? A bottle fed baby shouldn't be rooting for hunger, given there should always be plentiful amounts of milk available.

Some basic tips, many of which you may already know but some may help:

• Always have more milk in the bottle than baby will drink. If any bottle is drained completely, offer more in future bottles.

• You may well be offering bottles more frequently than you had anticipated, especially in these first 6 weeks. It could be hourly and it likely to not be anything close to 3-4 hourly for a few weeks.

• Try to keep babies head higher than stomach during bottle feeds. Whilst it needs to be a comfortable and practical position, the higher head is compared to stomach the better for bottle feeding a windy baby

• Adequate winding is very important. There are lots of different techniques. These need not be vigorous (especially in such a tiny newborn) but may be tricky for some babies.

• Try Feed>Wind>Feed. After finishing a feed, wind baby and then reoffer the bottle after a burp.

All of these ^ are regarding feeding. It may well not be hunger causing baby to be unsettled though.

Babies also have a natural desire to suck for comfort. Offering a dummy after a feed and wind may help.

Babies are also called by womb-like conditions. A swaddle is great for this, especially in these very early days. It recreates the tight, cramped, secure feeling.

Try things like:
full feed

wind
top up extra feed
into swaddle
put swaddle baby on your shoulder and rub back for winding again
sway gently until asleep
gentle (very slowly and gently) lower baby to put down
dummy in if squirming when put down
leave your hand on babys chest as he settles, reinserting dummy if its pushed out
wait until asleep and slowly withdraw your hand