Milk troubles

 

Having trouble with her milk. 

If anyone has advise on formula feeding we be grateful for a comment. As we just do not know what to try, being told different things by doctors and pediatricians. So we do not know what to do next. 

We think she sort of has allergy or reflux with her milk, but no one will listen saying it is too early or advoiding the question. Just giving us suggestions about sitting the baby up when we feed her, and dropping down the amount we give her and how often. Without no real investigation or advise we are just not sure what to do. 

She started being feed every 2hr on 2oz on sma formula. However she seemed to still want more after it was finished and only going an hour or so before suckling and crying for more. She was getting very unsettled and would not sleep at night after feeds. Then when we finally did get her to sleep she was also sleeping longer and not waking so we had to wake her for milk. So we spoke to the doctor suggest we up her milk now she is 3 weeks and gaining weight nicley. We then went every 3hr and she was taking in 3oz, which at first was fine, until she was showing the some behaviour. Fussing, crying suckling for more,Sleeping longer and becoming hard to wake, drawing up her knees arching her back and going bright red. She has been conispation  which I have spoke about in previous blogs. Also screaming and becoming hard to settle in the evenings and night. Gp said possible clolic however can not be sure, but she will grow out of it. This was not at all helpful. 

Doctors again said to up the milk to every 4 hr and 4oz. She was sleeping though the night, waking for feeds, this seemed a lot more settled. So we ruled colic out. This also conisides with me going back to work and trying to set a routine so we thought that played a role in this behaviour too. 

However she then became sick, her cold got worse that she was trying hard to breath. All the previous fussyness, crying, arching came back. Despite trying gripe water and tried infacol, nothing smoothed her. She did not like to be put down or laid flat this was making it difficult to get anything done or get any sleep because the only time she was calm,  was being held up and rocked on our chests. Then the projectile vomiting started about an hour after every feed, along with ariyah-mai  tensing in pain. 

We ended up in a&e because of her vomiting, her cold was making it hard for her to breath especially at night when she was laid on her back. They told us that she was gaining weight and seemed fine. But that she was getting to much milk therefore we need to drop back to 3oz every 3 hours. That her bowel movements were normal for a formula feed baby and to keep giving small amount of water after milk to sofen her bowels. 

This time we dropped down her milk, giving her small slips of water after feeds. We kept her up right when feeding, taking breaks to burb in between. Ariyah is a very hard baby to burb therefore it took ages afterwards to burb and rock her to sleep. She liked laying on her tummy but would vomit. So we tried to keep her upright as much as possible. Things seemed to improve for a few days however it was not long before she was vomiting even more, fussing, she was coughing and made sound like she was bring things up when feeding. She seemed hungry all the time, where she was rubbing her month,, suckling on everything, her clothes and us. She brought up flem and was very dribbly. Her skin was really dry and she would just scream in pain again for hours. We just knew something was wrong and at our whits end. 

No one would listen and as a parent that is frustrating. Trust your gut and just do what you feel is best. Get medical advice but also push when you know that there is something wrong. We still doing this and if I have learnt anything in the journey of parenthood is fight and push because otherwise nothing will change. You know best!! 

One good note our little girl is getting so big and strong, she loves tummy time and now holds her head up and tries to push through her arms. She likes to stand and bounce on us. She pulls and copies facial expressions and is just very alert watching us and the cats. She loves laying with them and stroking Hayes (he is the friendly one that will let her grab his fur abit) She has realised she can use her voice to get our attention and have a chat which is amazing.

We have a very clever girl on our hands. 

Resent photos of our beautiful rainbow. 

(Written in November 2019)