MSE Newborn to 1 year (& beyond!) baby club 2

cleofish

Bangton wrote: »

I could of written this and my baby is 5 weeks old Literally word for word that's how our baby is. He was on cow and gate which we swapped for their comfort formula when he was just 2 weeks. To be honest this made things worse - he was so flatulent and it stank!!! He was also groaning all the time and straining.

We switched last week to SMA Gold and the difference has been immense until Saturday when he started pulling his knees up and groaning. However, this only lasted a day and by evening i put him on his mat to play and he seemed to kick it all out!!!! But i'm not confident it won't happen again as too early. Depressing isnt it? What about Hipp Organic? Read it's amazing but our boy didnt like it and spat most of it out!!

Only difference in our posts is our baby is very smiley - he started at 4 weeks what felt like real smiles. As i have discovered though - babies are dam unique. Ours is smiley, alert but doesnt sleep much. Not bad at night most of the time but sometimes he's terrible.

TBH everyday varies - about a week ago he stopped napping much and whilst he has always been a good feeder he is bordering on greedy at moment. Wondered if it was a growth spurt maybe. One day he went 12 hrs with only small catnaps on me, today he has napped twice, other days once or not at all. I literally have no idea what each day will bring - he's usually ok at night waking once or twice after bed although he can pull all nighters too!! He has slept through about 3 times in last few weeks (6hrs).

Feel awful writing it down but for last couple of days i have been fed up again. It's so baby led and i crave routine. At 2-3 weeks we seemed to be getting at least a night routine which although loose was fairly close each night plus a nap or 2 in day. Then at 4.5 weeks bam, no 2 days are same. He's 6 weeks on Thursday and i feel like it's 6 weeks of being led around and dictated to. HV says i need to go to docs with low mood and im scared they will say PND ... anyone else had this? Is it really PND if i am happy too? Everyone wants to label it including OH but i feel like I've gone from freedom and independence to having my life mapped out by this little creature and yes at times i resent it but at times i love it. Had bad health since a traumatic birth and feel unable to cope because of that too

thanks for getting back with that bangton, it feels good to know others are going through the same things, although not good that you feel like that as well-iygwim

I understand where you are coming from on the low moods, although i had no where near a bad birth experience as you did, i did come away from it feeling very detached, although now that has got better, but on the days that my LO is really bad sometimes it feels as if i am chained to the moses basket/living room and cant go very far as shes crying for one thing or another. Its not like i even want to go far but to the bedroom to get dressed or the toilet might be nice!

I hope that your low mood lifts soon, do you have it every day or just when your having a really tough day? Like someone else has said (sorry cant remeber) just going through the birth mentally takes time to get over nevermind having to deal with a newborn at the same time. perhaps it might be good to talk it through with someone?


claree_x- thanks for the tips on the bottles I went and ordered some off amazon on prime delivery so they came the next day, literally out of the packet and I was sterlizing them to use. Havent seen a big difference in them alone as of yet as we have been doing other things besides as well but LO seems to be able to suck on them much better than the other ones.


Applecrumble24- thanks for the info I will have a look at acid reflux, we are now onto dentinox, colief and gripe water i think we didnt give them really enough of a chance to work last time before giving them up. Can I ask what is colic massage? I rub LO tummy in a clockwise direction and we have 'bicylce legs' where I move her legs that I read before from dr google is it similar to that?


I also dread the evenings as it sometimes feels as if im not going to bed but im clocking on to do a night shift, OH is back to work so on his two days off (which are never together) he does the night before his day off, which kinda does give me a break but I still wake up every time she stirs, we move her in the moses to his side of the bed but I still wake so although I dont have to stay up to feed her I wake anyway so its still uniteruppted sleep.




Walkingonadream- my LO is coming up to 6 weeks now and we dont have any sort of routine other than she has a nap around 12-3 lunchtimes where I run around trying to get stuff done before she wakes again.
We did try a couple of times putting her upstairs in the moses basket at night around 8pm (we used a monitor to see her) in the dark with no tv just a night light and the first time she settled down really well plus it gave me and OH time to have our food and be able to use both hands. But even with that it gets a bit difficult if OH is working late as he doesnt really get time to see her, but I would really like to get into some sort of a routine.


Has anyone heard or tried a 'dream feed'? I was thinking that if I could get LO to go down early that perhaps we could try the dream feed? Or do you think it might be too early?
As it is now, if she is sleeping around 11/11.30pm I change her nappy and wake her and give her a feed, wind her and take her upstairs to get her down in the moses, sometimes this works sometimes it doesnt , she still seems to wake for a feed around 2am anyway. We keep her downstairs until around 11.30 as when we tried getting her to bed early she would just wake and I would end up bringing her downstairs anyway.
Anyone fancy sharing their sort of routine that they had for their 6 week old?

Claree__x

Cleo - honestly, I don't know if the bottles work either! We tried them at the same time as we introduced infacol as well but I'm scared to stop now incase they are making a difference! My cousin swore by them though. One thing to note is that you can't shake them to mix the powder 'cause they'll leak. I complained to amazon that mine were leaking - turns out its just the bottles...oops!

Kayalana99

Hey guys,

Did anyone have a choking baby? He's 7 weeks old now and he just stops breathing (99% sure he is being sick a little bit and its getting stuck)

Im just so scared he's going to do it in the night

Sparkles87

Claree__x wrote: »

I was about to rage 'cause I bought it last night for £60 but it's still at that.

It was £48.96 on the 9th, then went back to £61.20 on the 10th!

Claree__x

Sparkles87 wrote: »

It was £48.96 on the 9th, then went back to £61.20 on the 10th!

I was a day late, grr! At least I didn't pay £99 at mothercare.
Used it for the first time tonight, I love it. It makes it a bit cooler than I did though, worried now I've been giving her milk too warm for months!

BabaMoose

AngelMommy - thanks for adding us

WOAD - I was having trouble and definitely recommend seeing a lactation consultant/going to a BF group if you have a local one. Your health visitor might be able to help you find one. I went due to being in pain and wondering what was going wrong and found a room full of people in the same position, those that had been there and those with other things going on that raised my awareness of things to look out for.

I was having latching trouble (causing me pain and also fearing the incoming rabid dinosaur face my new DS lovingly approached me with). He also fell asleep in the middle of feeding when 'the milk changed' and it was because he was seemingly becoming a little overwhelmed with what was coming through. He stays awake now though which is good, because before then feeds would be continuous (waiting for him to wake up and finish) and the thought of him having to latch on lots used to fill me with dread too.

For those who recommended lanosil to me - thank you! It actually is so much better than the other cream I had. Found it on Amazon for £6.66 so got myself some.

In terms of routine we were keeping a record to see when sleep seemed to happen and feeds etc and if he was asleep all day how that affected the night etc
We gave up after 5 days though as.... at 5 days old there was little point doing it.
We've continued to try and do as much of a routine as possible though with a 7.30pm bath and dimming lights etc. but he feeds when he feeds and sleeps when he sleeps.

Mind I'm yet to hit the two weeks mark so the other ladies on here can speak from much more experience. I just wanted to let you know I'm BF around the same time as you and am by no means finding it easy. There is help out there if we need it though

continualdiamond

Evening all.

Another mum here who definitely knows that no 2 days are the same. Yesterday Scarlett hardly slept, like an hr at the most in a 3 hr cycle. I'd change her, feed her, burp her & then the battle to settle her would begin for her to then sleep for a hr before id start all over again.

At 3pm it hit me and the tears started, i was just sooooo tired and wanted to sleep for a bit when she did. I happened to check on her when she was asleep and just so happened that she opened her eyes, took one look at me and gave me the biggest smile.

I then started crying out of guilt, guilt because here was my daughter beaming a big smile at me not knowing that I've had thoughts of 'omg what have we done' etc and felt i shouldn't be ever thinking this way.

Then today has been completely different, shes settled herself to sleep with soft music and her dummy a few times and slept for longer periods.

Must admit getting a routine is hard, but in the mornings now we have a bath together after her morning feed which is always before 9am. I put her in her bath seat and then get in so i am facing her and have a towel on the radiator keeping warm for her. Then get us both dressed and settle her down before normally getting my breakfast by at the latest 10.30am, however today i did get my breakfast at 9.30am which was just lovely.

Guess it takes time, but time seems forever as my little girl is 6 weeks on sunday.

Sparkles87

For us, it all settled down around three weeks and she started sleeping through, napping pretty well and put herself into a nice routine and all was lovely...
Then the teething/16 week jabs/first cold/four month sleep regression all hit us at once

BeNiceToMySelf

lao_cat wrote: »

For me I know the only reason why I got through it was I had alot of support from my husband and my lactation consultant. That and a good amount of pigheadness.

lol yes I'm stubborn too! my local surestart let people hire out breast pumps for free if that helps walking. I used my own medela swing.

*Nutella*

WalkingOnADream wrote: »

First time posting on this thread, just looking for some advice on a few issues really. My little man is just over 2 weeks old now and totally adorable (he's my first baby).

I have always been pro breastfeeding but no one ever explained how difficult it was. I only lasted a couple of days before giving up, I was a hormonal mess, he hadn't had a wet or dirty nappy in over 24 hours and was screaming with hunger all day long. I don't think he had the hang of it either as he would only suck a few times and fall asleep and nothing would wake him.
Since then he has been on formula and I feel like a massive failure. I have also been expressing when possible and also offering the breast in the hope of maybe returning to breastfeeding now he is bigger and stronger. I am totally drained as he is a 'snacker' so eats little amounts usually every hour and I need to express every 2 hours as my supply is low. As a result I am in a constant cycle of feed, pump with no time for much else. I'm in 2 minds about whether to totally give up on breastfeeding/expressing and just concentrate on spending more time with my son.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

Secondly is the sleep situation. I know it's too early for a routine but is it normal for your days not to have a start or a finish? And do you try and implement a 'bedtime'? LO is usually awake most of late evening and doesn't settle to sleep until early hours in the morning and only stays asleep a few hours. With his sleep being so erratic I don't know how it's possible to have going to bed and waking up times. Is it worth trying to set the mood at say 7pm with low noise, dimmed lights etc? Or is it just pointless?

Any advice about this stage would be much appreciated.

Welcome to the thread and congratulations on your little man

I had very similar challenges with breastfeeding - it really is so much harder than you'd expect! The first two-three weeks were really tough - one day I'd decide to keep trying, then I'd pump a bit, the next day I'd decide I couldn't face it anymore and would stick with formula, then I'd feel guilty, so I'd decide to battle on with breastfeeding, and so on and so on. I was miserable and cried every day because I felt I was letting my little girl down by failing to give her breastmilk. The day I finally decided to give up, pack away the pump and stick with formula once and for all was a big relief and a massive guilt trip in one big swoop. But for me it was the right decision, and my LO - who's now 18 months - was thriving on formula, and I was a much happier and (I truly believe) a better mum to her. Happy mummy really does make for a happier baby. Do what's best for you, but please don't feel guilty if you decide on formula. Yes, we all know that breast is best, but not at any cost, and your LO *will* be fine on formula! Big hugs to you x

Re. routine (lack of...) - yes, it's normal for days not to have a clear beginning and end. We had several days when we'd eat dinner past midnight, then slowly slowly a routine started to emerge. The one thing we did do from Day 1 was an evening bath, and I think we started dimming lights etc. in the evenings after a week or two. We also opened curtains, switched on lights, I got dressed etc. in the mornings. In the beginning it didn't make a blind bit of difference to LO's sleep, but having a couple of specific activities happening at specific times every day helped give an illusion of a routine, which helped me stay sane There are a number of apps (and there's always the good old paper notebook) that enable you to track sleep, feeding etc. which you might find useful in a few days'/weeks' time - they can help you spot a pattern and the beginnings of a routine that you might not otherwise notice in your sleep-deprived newborn fog