Twins Help Please!

[Vigilante]

Hello all,

Me and my partner have 10 week old twin girls, Alexandra and Samantha who were born 6 weeks premature and spent 2 weeks in scbu before coming home.

When born Alexandra was 4 pounds 4 ounces and Samantha was 3 pounds 6 ounces, they gained weight very quickly in scbu and were off a feed tube within a few days and taking those little bottles of cow and gate with the little nuk teats, during the corse of their stay in scbu we introduced them to avent bottles and number 2 teats as advised because number 1 would most likely tire them out too quickly.

This worked and they were taking easily around 3 ounces per feed in scbu around 6-7 feeds per day, it also continued at home well with them taking up to 4-5 ounces 6 times per day which had them both gaining around 1 pound in weight every 2 weeks.

But over the past 4 weeks we started to get problems with them falling asleep while taking their feeds as well as arching their backs, sucking the teat without actually taking the feed...? and also becoming very fussy at evenings and night times between 6-7pm and 4am. Intially the helth visitor thought they might have colic so she advised us to try Infracol, this seemed to help them burp more easy after their feeds but did not cure the very fussy behavior in the evening hours.

She then advised we try Colief drops in their feeds, knowing that this was available on prescription we made an appointment to see a GP at our practice, but after having a lengthy talk with the GP it was decided their symptoms were more in keeping with baby reflux, which is quite possible considering myself, my mum and my gran all suffer with GERD and on prescription medications.

They have now been on Infant Gaviscon in their feeds for the past 7 days, some of the fussiness at the evenings has improved abit but again we are having problems with them taking their feeds and falling asleep after around 1-2 ounces. its almost like they are taking less then when they was 4 weeks old.

We have not changed formula at all throughout their life and still use Cow and Gate 1.

They are both over 9 pounds on their last weigh in which was 2 weeks ago.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Eala]

Is the Gaviscon added to the bottles? I seem to remember hearing that it thickens the milk, so that in itself could be making it more difficult for your girls to get the milk out. Perhaps try a teat size up, or do Avent do a variflow teat?

 

[kirsty2376]

Is the Gaviscon added to the bottles? I seem to remember hearing that it thickens the milk,

Hi, I also have twin girls, they were born 8 weeks early and were put on mam teats size 1. Teagan had gaviscon whilst in Guildford (1st of 2 hospitals) and it was mixed with 10-15ml of water and given before a feed. This helped a lot. When they were moved to Basingstoke hospital (hospital no.2) they put the sachet in the milk bottle and she struggled to drink it. They soon realised it was because it was thickening the milk and making it too difficult for her to suck. I was told by a nurse that it thickens it to milkshake thickness and is harder to suck. once we changed back to mixing with boiled water, she soon picked up.

... again we are having problems with them taking their feeds and falling asleep after around 1-2 ounces.

The problem you are having with them falling asleep is happening to me too. My girls were taking 6 ounces during the day and 7 just before bed. now we are lucky if they manage 3 ounces. I logged on here to ask about going up to a faster flowing teat, thinking that maybe they would drink more?

 

[Vigilante]

Hey,

been one of them days again.

We have indeed added the Gaviscon to the milk (which we make in advance) and it does obviously make it harder to suck through the no 2 Avent teats, we did notice the girls starting to disfigure the teat at times.

So today we went and got some Avent Variflow teats (for thicker liquids) tried these two feeds so far and had further problems because it now seems too fast even on the slowest setting and they are leaking it from the sides of their mouths. But last feed we couldnt get Alexandra to take the teat at all she just held it in her mouth and cried.

Im thinking at present to just go completely back to basics and thats just the milk alone without any medications because over the time we seemed to had troubles we were following advice from the hv and drs and giving them anti colic and now reflux meds. They cried and cried at evenings before any medication but at least they were taking feeds.

With the crying too we found over the past few days putting them to bed earlier in a darker room has seemed to help them sleep better between, they cry as usual but seem to get bored of it or tired quicker and have slept better from 12 pm rather than 4am onwards.

As I say I think the only option we have at the moment is to simplify things again and work from there.

 

[kirsty2376]

sounds like a good idea to me.

we opted to order the size 3 teats as they r fast flow and we are hoping they will be able to drink easier with less effort.

Will let you know how we get on x

 

[Sarah+]

My son had bad reflux too. We gave him his medication (he was on Losec) before feeds using a syringe (like comes in a Panadol pack) and that worked well and made a big difference. I think I was advised to put it in the bottle but didn't because I was combination breast/bottle so obviously didn't work to well for the former, lol. The back arching and crying while feeding are classic reflux signs. Good luck.

 

[Vigilante]

Yeah they defo have reflux in my opinion, Hiccups/coughing after every single feed now followed by crying. Bringing up milk on occasions but its more silent I feel.

Arching back and neck during feeds.

We have found making them go 4 hours between feeds and having set feeding times of 12-4-8-12-4-8 has helped them take more at those feeds now back to 4 -4.5 oz most feeds. They are also back taking infant gaviscon with Alexandra who has this the worst taking a double sachet now rather than half as prescribed originally. (hoping this works).

unfortunately when I told the GP that they were refusing feeds and going back to sleep she took that as us having some kind of problems with how we are feeding them or bottle problems so she is contacting our HV - which is annoying considering refusing feeds is just another symptom.

I also asked our GP about Enfamil AR since I have heard good things but according to them they havent heard of it and dont prescribe it....

 

[kirsty2376]

our size three teats arrived on Saturday and after a day or 2 of a lot of milk spillage, i think they now have got used to the faster flow and are drinking much better. They are drinking about 4-5 ounces every 4 hours during the day and it only take them 5 mins to drink instead of 30-40 mins for a couple of ounces, so glad we got new teats