Dropping the cluster feed, night wakings due to snuffly baby and colic!

[Grufter]

Morning,

There's a few things I wanted to discuss on here so hopefully have posted in the right place. My 8 week old has colic so we are having a really rough time with him at the moment. Have tried everything, even cutting out dairy in my diet but nothing seems to work so GP just said to 'grin and bear it.' Our first son was an angel baby and took to EASY really well and slept through very early so it's a shock to the system to have such an unsettled baby, the poor little man is obviously in pain a lot! As he cries a lot he is more hungry so I am keeping the 6pm cluster feed, any ideas when to try and drop this? DS is also a big boy (91% percentile) and just doesn't seem to do big stretches even though he is clusfter fed and takes a good dream feed. DS was sleeping until 4 - 4.30AMish last week after 11pm DF however this week has been v snuffly, can't breath due to blocked nose and has reverted back to needing 2am feed and then 5am and only feeds for 10 mins and then won't feed anymore.

Any suggestions on what to do with really snuffly baby's? (Using saline spray, vaseline on nose) Really want to get him back to sleeping well at night.

I just feel as though EASY is a bit all over the place as he is so unsettled it's hard to get him back on track some days.

Thanks ever so much,

V xxx

[Erin M]

Does he have a cold?  Is that what is causing the stuffiness or is it most likely something else?  You might try elevating the head of wherever he sleeps (or get a wedge or some sort) to help with the stuffiness -- aside from that, saline, humidifier, etc is the best you can do at this age. 

If you suspect intolerances, many moms find soy is a problem as well as dairy.  How are his poops?  There's some info on intolerances here: Does my LO have food intolerances?

Have you ruled out reflux as a possible cause of the fussiness?  There's some good info on that here: Reflux 101 - General reflux information that you can have a read of and see if anything rings a bell.

Regarding the cluster feeds, it's the kind of thing that works really well for some babies and they carry on for many weeks and doesn't work at all for other babies.  So if it's not working, you might try dropping it.  In the case of my dd1, she was so fussy in the evenings that frequent feeding was a good way for me to keep my sanity, so I fed often.    It's the kind of thing where you keep it until it's not working any more -- very vague I know, but it seems to differ widely. 

And finally, don't buy into the idea that bigger babies need less feeds.  My ds was my biggest of my 3 and he fed more often than the others at night.  I tried to fight it for weeks and weeks and then just realized that he honestly seemed to need the calories.

[Grufter]

I just thought it was him being congested as he had it at about 4 weeks too when we all had colds but maybe he does? We have brought a mucus extracter (sounds lovely) and that has seemed to relieve him a little but he's still very nasal and struggling to feed properly. We have elevated the moses basket too from when he was little just incase it was reflux.

Our GP advised me to cut out dairy but not soy so I'll try that too thank you. She also said it's just something that they grow out by 3/4 months so I need to grin and persevere! He has v runny pooops, sometimes explosive however our first DS had the same and he was fine so I assumed this was just breast fed babies?

Health adviser and GP don't think its reflux as he's isnt overly sicky but def sounds like colic - crying for v long spells, hard to settle etc.. You can also hear his tummy gurgling around all day like it's upset constantly. Thanks for the info pages, they are really useful! Having a good read through them now.

The cluster feed seems to work for him as if I didnt give it then I dont even think we'd get to 3/4am! So I think I'll keep it.

It's interesting that you say that about bigger babies. A lot of my friends have said the same about theirs although in the BW book I know Tracey says that she often gets bigger babies to do bigger strectehs until 5am in the first few weeks. They are not machines though are they and if he needs feeding then I'll keep at it - he's piling on the weight so that makes me happy.

Thanks for comning back to me xx

[Erin M]

Definitely keep that cluster feed then!  Post away on any of the other boards if you need any clarification -- while I'm not experienced in either food intolerances or reflux, there are lots of ladies on the forum who are and the reflux board (Colic, Reflux, & Crying) and food allergy board (Food Allergies) have lots of very knowledgeable moms on them who are happy to share advice if you need it.   

I'm sure that there are some bigger babies who can go longer stretches as well, I know that mine wasn't one of them!  He was always in the 90s for weight until about 18 months -- now he's 90s for length and 70s for weight -- he spent so much of that first year growing and growing!