We had some good news today. Zoe's clothed weight is now 3060 g, which means her actual weight is 2.960 kg, just a shade under her birth weight.
I had her weighed at the local chemist. They have a child health nurse visit for a few hours on Fridays and Tuesdays, and it is really convenient to just go and have her weighed. She had gained 80 g since Friday, which is 20 g/day and in a much better range now.
I feel like we are finally starting to make some progress. We've had to adjust the feeding regimen from 5 x 30ml + 2 x 60 ml comp feeds from the bottle because she doesn't seem to be able to cope with the 60 ml volume. We are now aiming for 7 x 40 ml instead, which seems to work better.
I can't wait until we are no longer dependent on the bottle. No matter how slowly I try to give the bottle to Zoe, she still gulps it down and ends up vomiting up quite a bit after the feed. She also has more burps with the bottle than just breastfeeding alone.
The thing that changes from feed to feed is that sometimes the burping and farting cause her to be completely beside herself with crying, which stops abruptly as soon as the offending bubble comes out!!
Other times she will quite happily just turn her head to the side in her bed and vomit out a little, or burp and poo in her sleep, and be completely unfazed by it.
It seems that at certain times of the day, wind and other things have the power to upset her more than at other times.
Last night after her 7pm feed, she got more and more wound up, crying inconsolably and getting intermittently red in the face and flailing around with her legs. Nothing we did, including putting her back on the breast, did any good.
Finally, I took her into the spare room and lay on the bed in the dark cuddling her, and she stopped. She then went straight to sleep in her bed.
This kind of behaviour is the classic 'arscenic hour' that all the childcare books talk about. It also could be labelled as a bout of 'colic'. I've read the views of a few baby specialists (Eg. Robin Barker), who question the 'colic' diagnosis. The word is meant to signify abdominal pain, but instead is applied to any time the baby cries hysterically with no explanation.
Some of these experts instead say that the colicky baby is in fact overstimulated and just needs to calm down so they can go to sleep.
After what happened with Zoe last night, I really do buy into this philosophy. Only when I took her into a dark and quite room with no TV, no lights or any other stimulation, did she finally calm down. I bet it won't work every time but its a good tactic to try when she is inconsolable.
I am feeling more and more confident by the day, and her weight gain today has given me a huge boost. I also have much more breast milk, and even noticed some leakage when she hadn't fed for a while - hurrah!! The decrease in Motilium dose also doesn't seem to be causing my milk to decrease, so hopefully when I cut them out all together next week, it will be fine.
The child health nurse visits again on Thursday, so I am hoping Zoe can reach her birth weight by then, at just under 4 weeks.
Wet Jelly Beans
1 day ago
1 comment:
Good job Mum! :)
Our bub is a guzzler too (both on the bottle and breast)! We find that tummy time really helps with the gas. We put him on his tummy after almost every feed. He kicks, cries and squirms until he gets it all out (top & bottom).
Re tummy time, our midwife told us:
* You must always supervise bub when they're on their tummy.
* Use a firm mattress/surface.
* When putting bub on his tummy, make sure his head is turned to one side so he doesn't hit his nose on the mattress/floor. Otherwise he won't like tummy time.
* Put his arms/hands up next to his head.
* If he's rooting while on his tummy, he wants more food.
Maybe talk to the nurse whether this technique could work for Zoe (and show you how to do it - I needed a lot of practise before I was comfortable putting him on his tummy).
Hope this helps.
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