Thanks Ladies. We had an absolutely nightmare night though, ended up in A&E! (This is very long btw!)
He had a big feed at 9pm, around 4oz but it took over an hour to drink, with frequent burps in between and then seemed to settle pretty well. But then just after 10pm he started to gag and choke, my sister picked him up and he projectile vomited, we got him settled when he did it again, but this time seemed to choke on it and started to turn purple and went floppy! We all paniced, in all my years of looking after babies i'd never seen one do that, especially so young, so we headed straight to the hospital. Of course once we got there he was absolutely fine and seemed quite perky.
The paediatrician had a look at him and said they would keep him over night to observe him as he'd had a 'non-breathing epsiode', even though she then said that this was actually quite normal. We mentioned the tummy bug but she didn't really pay attention to that and then said that we were over-feeding him. He was having 3-4oz a day, every 2-2 and a half hours, of course sometimes he'd have a lot less but never more than 4. We said that the midwife had told us to feed him on demand and she just said that they do say that but that he needed to be in a routine and put us on a strict 3 hour, 3 oz feeding schedule. He then started fussing for food but they wouldn't give us any as his next feed wasn't scheduled for an hour and a half so he screamed for that whole entire time, completely and utterly screaming without a single minutes break. Nothing we would do would console him. Several nurses came in and took him off us to try and quiet him, like we weren't doing a good enough job and would them hand him back when they couldn't settle him. It was just horrible, he'd never screamed like that before. We sat in a little room with no cot or anything for 3 hours waiting to be taken up to a room so we were all tired and Max still wasn't settling.
Eventually we ended up on the childrens ward where they hooked him up to an apnea monitor and got my sister settled into a bed. They then allowed him to feed and after watching him feed and then arch his back and gag and projectile vomit they diagnosed him with a bad case of reflux, they were slightly concerned that his heart rate was erratic, going from 130 to 190, but then said it wasn't a problem. He came out this morning and seemed fine, we kept strictly to his 3 hourly feeds, and he slept well in between. But then since 7 he's barely slept and is pretty much just screaming an hour before his feed and then an hour after his feed, as he vomits and arches his back and screams.
So,all in all, we're frustrated as hell, and very tired! The midwife's telling us to demand feed and yet the doctor is saying not to and we're overfeeding him. We were told he had bad reflux but they wouldn't give him anything because of the side effects (???) and told us he would have 'non-breathing episodes' and that they were normal but to bring him back in if he didn't regain his colour (start breathing in other words...)
Now my sister's an absolute basket case, the second he looks like he might be sick she picks him up and puts his head forward, she hands him straight to me if he starts to cry as she doesn't think she can settle him, especially if he turns purple again and generally spends just as much time crying as he does.
It seems like our happy little bubble has burst in the space of 24 hours and our content baby now screams constantly in pain.
I'm now trying to research reflux, we do everything they suggest already, like propping the cot up, keeping him upright after feeds for at least 20 minutes etc. but none of that works so I guess it might be worth getting a prescription for Gaviscon.
Sorry, I know this is long and I don't really have any questions, I just needed a good whinge! I'm so tired but I don't want to burden my sister any more as she's already a bit of a wreck!
