Hi everyone
Im looking for some advise. Im a first time mum with a 6 week old baby. I have had many challenges in the 1st few weeks, which im sure is pretty normal, so I wont bore you! The main problem im having is that im breastfeeding, which has been the main challenge. My baby was diagnosed with a bad lip and tongue tie at week 4 and up until then I found it extremely painful to feed, however, I persevered. Thankfully we had the procedure done a couple of weeks ago and her latch and feeding have improved. I was told to feed her on demand, this is now a problem as she is using me as a human soother!! Her feeds would go on for 2-3 hours sometimes and there I was thinking she was hungry as thats what I was told. Straight after the tongue tie op she was very out of sorts and showing symptoms of colic, which I thought was her just been out of sorts from the procedure. This hasnt subsided and has gotton worse, where she has lots of wind and cramping, especially in the evening time. I realised that she was taking in too much milk, and probably a lot of fore milk which is full of sugars. And this possibly was causing the pain. It got so bad last Fri that she was inconsolable and was crying hysterically from 8pm-2am, and then she barely slept for the night. It didnt improve so we had to bring her the next day to the hospital. They ran all of the tests and theyre only conclusion was she was being overfed and was developing reflux. They prescribed gaviscon for infants, which Im finding very difficult to give her. I have since cut back her feeding to 40mins, max 1 hr but yet Im finding that she cries a lot without looking satiated. The worst of it all is that she will not sleep well, and her longest sleep would be 2 hrs at some point during the day, mainly morning. A good friend of mine told me to get a routine started, ie that she should be sleeping for 3 hrs during the day and feeding for 30mins, cluster feeding in the evening time. This is easier said than done, I have tried hard to introduce this but very little works to get her to sleep after a feed and then she cries hysterically until I have to pick her up. Ive been told to go cold turkey and let her cry which ive done but she doesnt stop and ends up practically making herself sick. As Im not sure if it is the pain of stomach cramps, reflux or just fussiness I dont want to leave her hysterical for too long, she shouldnt really be doing this if she is just overtired.
Anyway, sorry for the essay, Im just getting tired of not being able to get some answers so any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Carolyn
