Need help with 4 week old please

[Cornette]

Hi everyone,
I am new here and have heard rly great things about this forum. Basically everything I read refers to this forum

I have read alot of posts but not rly finding the info I need at the age my baby is now. I am not a first time mommy, this is my third child but its very true that every baby is different!
My LO is 4 weeks old now and without even trying she has sort of gone into a semi routine it seems but I worry because it is 4 hourly and not sure if this is too young, her day is:
7:00 Eat
7:30-8:30 Awake
11:00 Eat
11:30-12:30 Awake
14:00 - Eat
14:30-15:30 Awake
18:00 - Bath get ready for bed and Eat
19:00 - Bed time
22:00 - Eat and goes to sleep again
Usually wakes anywhere between 2-3am again for a feed and then it starts again at 7am. She drinks Lactogen formula.

She drinks 125mls but does not always finish her bottle, especially after bath time, she will prop drink only 90mls or so. The tin says she should be on 150ml but I know that is just a guideline so not too stressed about that now.

This last week as she gets half way through the bottle she starts squirming, grunting and pushing making it very difficult to keep feeding her. She does this at every feeding now. Am I feeding her too much? Should I make it less and more frequent? Her nappies are fine for wet and her bowel movements are good too so not sure if I am just stressing over nothing. She doesnt seem to be hungry every 3 hrs except that one time in the day. And she is starting to struggle going to sleep like she used to, she fusses and cries and is just generally irritated it seems before finally settling.

If anyone please has any advice on whether her feeding is ok and about the grunting etc I would really appriciate it.

Thanks so much

[Lolly]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Sounds like she is generally doing really well!

What flow teat do you have her on? It maybe the grunting is her telling you she is having to work too hard to get her milk and it may be worth trying the next size up.

The other possibilities are wind or reflux so it may be worth trying gas drops if you have them where you. Both my babies were refluxers and it started to become really apparent after the 6 week mark and difficulties feeding were one of the starting issues for them.

Keep an eye on the length of her awake times as it does include the eat part. Think of A time as eyes open to eyes shut and a lot of her A times are well over an hour which is long for 4 weeks so may be contributing to her being more unsettled at sleep time, she may be a bit over tired by then, especially at the end of the day.

What do you think?

Laura

[Cornette]

Hi Lolly, thank you

The teat is size 1 of the Tommee Tippee range. I have used the Telament drops (colic drops) that we have here in South Africa but that only helps a little. I have not used Gripe water much will maybe try that.
She had a bit of a rough afternoon today, prob about half an hour after her bottle she vomitted a bit. Not the first time its happened but doesnt happen at a specific time so not sure why that is happening. She is not upset at all when it does happen, just dozes right back to sleep after cleaning

I will def limit her awake time and see if that helps at all thank you for that

What did you do with your little ones when they started with the reflux?

[Lolly]

Have a look at this link

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=654.0

My two both moved to an easy digest formula first that helped for a while, then they had infant Gaviscon which was added to their milk. It's a stomach stabiliser which separated from the milk in the stomach to create  raft which stops the milk being refluxed back up. They both needed Ranitidine though to control the acid. I took them back and forth the GP for a while and eventually got referred to a paediatrician for the meds. They both had a reflux formula too which thickened in the stomach. The treatment does vary from country to country though.

You can try basic things like elevating the cot too which can make a big difference.

Read through the link first though and see what you think.

Laura

[Cornette]

Thanks so much, will have a look now