Fussy Baby Support

[MrsButterfly]

I am now eff. We started bf for the first four weeks but my awful supply put him in hospital with severe jaundice as he was dehydrated. I beat myself up about ff though and worry its the reason he's so fussy and that he would have been better if I'd persevered with bf. mummy guilt!

So in awe of you all ebf

Good nights sleep for us. Went for 5hrs initially (2 of them whilst being cuddled) and then another 3.5 after. Been v clingy this morning tho but managed a 15min nap in his swing. Enough time for me to frantically sort bottles and some food for me! Still in pjs though...

 

[aliss]

I would recommend keeping up with EBF

We went to formula (he also had severe acid reflux and was vomiting everything I pumped), and it was an utter nightmare, it made things so much worse. His tummy was rotting. I would never recommend formula for a fussy baby! An elimination diet yes, but never formula to try and help, for us, it caused more problems than it fixed!!!

 

[MrsButterfly]

I would recommend keeping up with EBF

We went to formula (he also had severe acid reflux and was vomiting everything I pumped), and it was an utter nightmare, it made things so much worse. His tummy was rotting. I would never recommend formula for a fussy baby! An elimination diet yes, but never formula to try and help, for us, it caused more problems than it fixed!!!

So so true

 

[aliss]

Yeah, it was really a frustrating thing, I think if I had to redo I would not have been able to change the situation. HIs collarbone was broken badly and he couldn't take the breast, so even pumping 24/7, he would just vomit all my milk. Sad sad time of my life! Thank goodness it's over.

 

[MrsButterfly]

Yeah, it was really a frustrating thing, I think if I had to redo I would not have been able to change the situation. HIs collarbone was broken badly and he couldn't take the breast, so even pumping 24/7, he would just vomit all my milk. Sad sad time of my life! Thank goodness it's over.

It's so frustrating. I feel like I did the right thing for my boy at the time but it still broke my heart to feel like I'd let him down

 

[aliss]

Yeah, it was really a frustrating thing, I think if I had to redo I would not have been able to change the situation. HIs collarbone was broken badly and he couldn't take the breast, so even pumping 24/7, he would just vomit all my milk. Sad sad time of my life! Thank goodness it's over.

It's so frustrating. I feel like I did the right thing for my boy at the time but it still broke my heart to feel like I'd let him down

I'm sure you'll feel better with time. I felt the same way too but looking back, what the heck other choice did you have? If he was hospitalized after dehydration, then you do what is immediately safest and not what is ideal. Mine was very dehydrated too and kept overnight, we do the best we can! It's hard enough learning to be a mother without having a sick baby that is dehydrating. Survival instincts kick in...

 

[MrsButterfly]

Yeah, it was really a frustrating thing, I think if I had to redo I would not have been able to change the situation. HIs collarbone was broken badly and he couldn't take the breast, so even pumping 24/7, he would just vomit all my milk. Sad sad time of my life! Thank goodness it's over.

It's so frustrating. I feel like I did the right thing for my boy at the time but it still broke my heart to feel like I'd let him down

I'm sure you'll feel better with time. I felt the same way too but looking back, what the heck other choice did you have? If he was hospitalized after dehydration, then you do what is immediately safest and not what is ideal. Mine was very dehydrated too and kept overnight, we do the best we can! It's hard enough learning to be a mother without having a sick baby that is dehydrating. Survival instincts kick in...

Absolutely. The hardest thing for me is while I can now reconcile it all in my head, I still get judgement off others. And that's infuriating. Like you say, we did what we had to in order to protect our babies. There's a perception you "choose" formula but I think in cases like ours, there's no active choice being made - it was necessary.

 

[aliss]

At your LO's age, I'm pretty sure I was still in tears for it daily, but I promise you'll be fine eventually But I tend to stick around a crowd that understands!

 

[lysh]

MrsButterfly- My LO was dehydrated, losing weight, and did have mild jaundice that we were monitoring which is why I started supplementing with formula.
I was really stressed out thinking there was no way my supply was increasing and that I was a failure as a mother. I felt guilty giving her formula each and every time. The big push now is to EBF to the point that women who do not or can't are made to feel like crap and that I DO NOT agree with. Breast is best when it works. When it does not, then formula is better than nothing. It is not poison. There are many children that thrive JUST fine on formula. My LO seems gassier when I give her formula but who knows- it could be something I ate. The other night she had terrible BM all night and yet she did not have a drop of formula during the evening hours.

As mothers, we make the best choices we can at the time. Right now I still have the motivation to keep trying to EBF, but if it gets to a point where it is not working and my mental/emotional health is being affected to a dangerous point then I will back off.

Aliss- You did what you had to do too. Sometimes what is best at the time is not breast- when my daughter was getting dehydrated breast was not best. Now I am working at it, but if I cannot get my supply up then I will have to reevaluate things.

Aprhodite- What is gripe water?

So how was everyone's evening/day going? My LO was up often again last night. She did not have a 3-4 awake period (since putting her into bed with me that seems to have decreased) but she is still up every hour and a half (mostly every hour) to feed. My DH managed to sooth her for 2 hours and 15 minutes this morning though! I did not sleep the whole time because when she did cry it woke me up, but it is better than nothing!

Right now it is 9:30am and she is sleeping on my chest. I tried to put her down but she woke up screaming so I figured instead of starting the day on a frustrating note I would just cuddle with her on my chest and browse the internet.

BTW, MrsButterfly- I am glad your LO got a nice stretch of sleep, is this something our LO will consistently do? If so, when did that start happening?

I really want to work on transitioning my LO out of my bed, but I am going to give it another week of her getting use to 'nighttime is nighttime' and then see if I can do the Rock N Play for part of the evening. Sometimes I start her out in it, but the rest of the night is usually a disaster if I try.

 

[MrsButterfly]

I thought about trying lo in his own bed last night but so needed sleep and didn't have the strength for it so he spent the whole night in with me. It was def the best stretch of sleep I've had with him and only one night feed which was amazing. Hoping now he's 6.5 weeks he'll start doing this more often!

Good luck with the bf - it's brill you're still going with it but I agree with you, mums shouldn't feel that they're poisoning their babies with formula. Ultimately I think a happy and relaxed mum is the best thing for baby x

 

[aliss]

You can get gripe water (or sometimes it's called colic water) at any regular pharmacy (I believe it's marketed as Mylicon(?) in the USA, b/c I actually called a store over the border and was going to go buy it How would I explain that to the border guards? hahaha). It worked quite well for us, basically you just use a dosage (it's on the back according to weight), give it in a cup/syringe/bottle (it's a small amount) and it helps bring all the tummy bubbles into one big bubble, which creates a big burp!

 

[bananaz]

I definitely have no judgment for moms who FF. I know that it's never an easy decision to make, and like others have said sometimes there's no decision at all - it's just what has to be done! I've always been very grateful that my baby wasn't jaundiced and that I've had a good supply so that I can choose to EBF.

Last night was something of a disaster. LO was fussy and I couldn't get her to settle for her evening nap until 6pm. She popped awake after only a half hour so I rocked her back to sleep, at which point she decided she was down for the night. She woke up at 11pm and then pretty much every hour after that until she was up for the day at 7am

Tonight I'm going to start a new bedtime routine and try to be more consistent about what time it starts and what time she goes down. Her bedtime has been all over the place for the past few weeks and I'm sure that's part of why she hasn't been sleeping well.

What do you ladies do for a bedtime routine? And when do your LOs typically go to bed? I've heard that routines are especially important for fussy/colicky babies but with everything being so hectic I haven't been as consistent as I probably should be...

 

[Noelle610]

I definitely have no judgment for moms who FF. I know that it's never an easy decision to make, and like others have said sometimes there's no decision at all - it's just what has to be done! I've always been very grateful that my baby wasn't jaundiced and that I've had a good supply so that I can choose to EBF.

Last night was something of a disaster. LO was fussy and I couldn't get her to settle for her evening nap until 6pm. She popped awake after only a half hour so I rocked her back to sleep, at which point she decided she was down for the night. She woke up at 11pm and then pretty much every hour after that until she was up for the day at 7am

Tonight I'm going to start a new bedtime routine and try to be more consistent about what time it starts and what time she goes down. Her bedtime has been all over the place for the past few weeks and I'm sure that's part of why she hasn't been sleeping well.

What do you ladies do for a bedtime routine? And when do your LOs typically go to bed? I've heard that routines are especially important for fussy/colicky babies but with everything being so hectic I haven't been as consistent as I probably should be...

My LO has reflux and my pediatrician told me to keep at the routine, even when I didn't feel it was working. She said that reflux/colic babies often hit sleep milestones later. As a result, moms often ditch the routines or encouraging good habits because they feel they're not working, but they do work - it just takes more time.

We've had good success with bath, massage, story (maybe), bottle, then bed. She goes down between 7am and 7:30am every night and usually very easily. Night waking is another issue, but it seems to be slowly improving (two steps forward, one step back kind of thing). I should add that I've read it's best not to have bottle or boob right before sleep, as they associate the feeding with sleeping. If that's a habit you don't want to get into (some moms are fine with it, others aren't), you may want to put the feed at the begining or the middle of the routine. I *try* to put Charlotte to sleep drowsy, but awake to teach her to "self-settle", but it works about 25% of the time and only just recently.

 

[bananaz]

My LO has reflux and my pediatrician told me to keep at the routine, even when I didn't feel it was working. She said that reflux/colic babies often hit sleep milestones later. As a result, moms often ditch the routines or encouraging good habits because they feel they're not working, but they do work - it just takes more time.

We've had good success with bath, massage, story (maybe), bottle, then bed. She goes down between 7am and 7:30am every night and usually very easily. Night waking is another issue, but it seems to be slowly improving (two steps forward, one step back kind of thing). I should add that I've read it's best not to have bottle or boob right before sleep, as they associate the feeding with sleeping. If that's a habit you don't want to get into (some moms are fine with it, others aren't), you may want to put the feed at the begining or the middle of the routine. I *try* to put Charlotte to sleep drowsy, but awake to teach her to "self-settle", but it works about 25% of the time and only just recently.

My LO has reflux as well. I didn't realize that they usually hit sleep milestones later but that is really good to know. I guess I need to scale back my expectations a bit.

I do usually nurse to sleep which is something I think I should try to move away from soon since I don't want her to depend on it to go to sleep, but sometimes I'm just not sure how else to get her sleepy! She's always so wired and active, even when I know she must be exhausted. I guess I just need to start trying to put her down more awake and see what happens.

PS: I love the name Charlotte! It seems like a perfect fit for your LO too, based on the photo. She definitely looks like a character

 

[aliss]

What do you ladies do for a bedtime routine? And when do your LOs typically go to bed? I've heard that routines are especially important for fussy/colicky babies but with everything being so hectic I haven't been as consistent as I probably should be...

We did 6-6:30pm at your LO's age (with plenty of overnight wakeups of course).

The problem with fussy/colicky babies is that they actually really need routine, desperately, because they don't quite get how to do that whole "sleep" thing And ESPECIALLY a reflux baby, because sleep = pain (being on your back). So, it took about an hour every night (sometimes of straight crying in our arms of course) and an elaborate system of swaddles, bouncing, music box, etc. and over 6 weeks he learned. Was still a fight for many months but slowly it got better. Now, I can tell him to go to bed and he will just walk to his room. But it came with a lot of work, primarily from him needing to learn that sleep was PLEASURE and not PAIN.

 

[bumpycat]

I'm really reassured to hear others say that fussy/colicky babies need routine so much. My LO is fussy and has real trouble with gas, though not classic colic. I made the decision to choose and stick to a routine very recently, and it's promising so far. Not a schedule, just a routine so far. He's got a consistent wake-up of between 6 and 7am already, and we're trying to figure out when his natural bedtime is by observing his behaviour. Not sure if maybe I should just pick a time and stick to it ...

 

[lysh]

Right now my lo is mostly soothed to sleep with nursing. Eventually I will try to wean her of that but for now we have enough to work on!

I do not have great advice myself for bedtime since my DD is only 5 weeks old but from the beginning we made sure to keep lights dim and noise low during the evening hours. I also did not play or stimulate her during feedings or diaper changes during the night. Even on those nights when she was awake for hours. Now we have introduced a nightly bath and mini massage before going to our room for sleep. Then I put on the same white noise cd and nurse her to sleep. I do not have a specific time yet because she is still unpredictable....when she is somewhat more predictable we will hopefully settle into more of a schedule.

 

[libbylou]

My LO definitely does better with a routine at night time. We usually do a bath, baby massage (which she still hates but I'm persisting) then swaddle her, nurse her to sleep (which we're trying to wean her off right now) and then down to bed. We read her a book after her bath too if she's not screaming at us

Your LO will settle into a better night time schedule. At 5 weeks LO was all over the place, sometimes she fell asleep at 9:30 sometimes she would fight sleep until 1am Now she regularly goes to sleep between 8:30-9:30 (started around 2-2.5 months)

 

[lysh]

How was everyone's evening with their LOs? We did alright, but she was VERY fussy yesterday and last night. It was one of those days where we took a few steps backwards. I barely got her down on her own all day. Thankfully her bath helped calm her last night and I was able to put her to sleep around 9:30. She woke up probably every hour and a half again to nurse, but at least this has been a consistent pattern. She seems to do this until about 5-5:30am. This is better than what she use to do- she use to wake up between 12-2am and then stay up for 3-4 hours! I think she is beginning to tell the difference between day and night- maybe starting the 'night' routine from day 1 helped.

This morning she drove my poor DH crazy and cried for most of the 2 1/2 hours. She was hard to sooth. It was hard to sleep, but I tried covering my ears lol. She certainly was not starving, she had 3 oz of formula! Plus this was after BFing.

I am feeling a little bit less confident about BFing. I felt like I was making progress, but my pumping sessions have gotten worse not better. My LC recommends drinking more Mothers Milk tea, having a beer a day, and making 'milk cookies'. I went from pumping 1 oz in the morning for 3 days to 1/2 an oz to 1/4oz.

It is hard to tell cues from a fussy baby as well which makes this combo feeding confusing. I am working hard on trying to tell when she hungry versus just wanted to suck on my boobs and try to space the feedings out. The LC said she is probably snacking on not really 'eating'. That iwll not help my supply.

 

[Cat_pj]

My LO is fussy/high needs or whatever you want to call it- she's still pretty much the same, not sleeping through, wants her own way etc. At least she's slightly more independent now!

I saw babies the other day when I went to watch the triathlon at the Olympics, and they were quite content just to sit and goo goo gah gah kind of thing. Beth would never have been like that at 3, 6 9 months or whatever! She'd be wanting to move around constantly ha ha!