Search Results for 'breast feeding'

[Anonymous]

Hi Lucy. Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply to your questions.

Hailey’s feeding behaviour started out that she needed to bed all the time or she would screech hysterically. The breast was literally the only thing that would soothe her. She’d latch on ravenously, and feed frantically for as long as I’d let her on each side. But then when I took her off, she would start screaming again. If I put her back on, then she would suck happily again. I mistook this to mean that she was still hungry. But if I let her keep sucking, she would suck for 4 or 5 hours. At that point, I did notice that her suck was not the deep sucking that you get with nutritive feeding, but more of a shallow suck, which I did learn was to soothe herself. She was using me as a soother, and unfortunately, my breast was the only thing that could quiet her. She wouldn’t take the pacifier. The LC we saw, looked at the situation and told me that I must not have enough milk which is why she wanted to be at the breast all the time. She checked out my latch, and said that it was fine. But things kept going on like that until my nipples were so raw from constant feeding. We hired a private LC and she said that she didn’t know, that her suspicion was also that my milk hadn’t come in fully yet and so she was hungry. So she had me take the supplements you mentioned to get a really good supply. But she also did a test. I had a supplemental feeding system (the kind that has a little bottle and a tiny tube that you tape to your breast). We filled the bottle with expressed breast milk, and then put Hailey on at a point where she was on the 4 hour binge. We saw that she still didn’t do deep sucking and was trying to suck shallow to avoid getting the milk. That’s when I knew that she was just trying to soothe herself. But I kept up with the supplements anyhow, which gave me the most ridiculously huge milk supply- it also gave me a very forceful letdown which Hailey couldn’t tolerate. I did try to give her other things to soothe her during that long stretch becaue I knew it couldn’t be a hunger issue at that point. Things progressed until it got worse- the screaming was nonstop and when I would go to nurse her, she would go frantically, then when I’d get a letdown, she would pull off. She would do this over and over, and she’d choke and sputter, and milk would come out of her nose. She’d have stridor sounds. It got increasingly harder to feed her. She would do shallow non-nutritive sucking, I thought that I didn’t have enough milk again, but if I would pump, I could get another 6 ounces in 20 minutes. So I figured that if I could get that from a pump, then she could extract even more milk then that if she wanted to. At that point I took her to the doc who diagnosed her with reflux. I continued nursing and pumping and tried to give it in a bottle which wasn’t any better. For us, I think that it was all reflux all along that just got progressively worse. But I’ve heard of other babies doing what Lucy is doing just because they want to soothe themselves during their fussy period. After you feed her, can you try offering her something else to suck, like your finger or a paci (if that won’t interfere with the latching)? Maybe that will keep her happy and give you a break.

Good luck. I hope that things get easier and that it’s just a colicky phase. Keep us posted.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I’m elimintating very strictly after the “mac and cheese incident”. LOL. She cried for 4 hours after that one. So, I’m on Henry’s diet now… gluten, soy, dairy, corn and fructose free. It’s really tough!!! She does much better on it though. It makes it worth it. It keeps me from touching that mac and cheese again! My moms homemade-hard to resist

Well, I’m on week 4 and waiting for it to get easier. Yes, I’ve been working with a lactation specialist all along. My milk didn’t come in until day 6-7, so I needed help right from the beginning. She lost a lot of weight in the hospital and all that fun stuff. She’s making up for it now and gaining well. So, how do I know? Well, she’ll go on a feeding binge for about 4 hours where she’ll eat every hour about 5 times. She emptys my breast on the first feeding and then gets more and more discontent. Shaking her head, bobbing thing at the latch on etc. You know? And I just can tell I’m not making any milk fast enough for her. how can I make enough milk for her to feed that much??? I’ve started pumping more and bottle feeding her and that helps a little. But, I’m going through my supply really fast. Can’t seem to get ahead of her eating schedule.

I just bought some fennelgreek and blessed thistle. Hopefully I can get ahead of her a bit. I’ve got a seminar on Oct 2 I need to leave her for. we’ll see what happens.

Thanks for all the advice! It really helps me get through the rough times.

[hellbennt]

jonah didn’t get juice (I don’t give it) and he didn’t like milk when I began to ‘offer’ it at 12 months…he drank a lot of water (still does)- I was breastfeeding him 2x a day at 12 months, so I dont know how many ounces that was…and then he was weaned by 15 months and it still wasn’t until about 18 months that he’d even drink any significant volume of milk…

however, he was a great eater and got calcium from yogurt, cheese, broccoli, etc & his ped said that was fine…

[Anonymous]

Thais,

Thanks. I though mucous was always bad and meant MSPI. But maybe it’s ok. I’ll ask his doctor next week.

Is Matthew ok? You posted about him falling and needing to go back to continuous feeds. Was that recently? He was doing so well! I hope he still is.

Karen,

Maybe you’re right. He just needs a lot of fiber. It’s just so hard to always have to think about everything I feed him or don’t feed him and how it’s going to effect his bowels. And, he still doesn’t eat anything except purees and spoon fed formula and cereal. That’s odd that Prunes constipate Marisa. I think they are fine for Myles. He was doing ok (as long as I was proactive with giving him prunes, fiber juice and flax seed oil daily) until the breast milk ran out. Maybe he just has to adapt.

For Everyone else,

Do you think less formula and more juice and solids would be ok? Right now he gets 19 ounces of formula a day. How much do most of your one year olds get? I’m thinking of cutting out one of his formula feedings and replacing it with some more solids and juice. That would bring down his formula intake to 15 ounces. I worry because I know that for the first two years they need the fat that milk and formula provide. And they need protein. He doesn’t eat anything with protein. It was so much easier with my first two.

Thanks everyone!

ndrose2006-9-21 12:49:41

[hellbennt]

I have found that with breastfeeding, there’s a ‘3 factor’

what i mean is that the first 3wks are rough and then by 3 wks everything is much better

then 3 wks after that, at 6wks things are MUCH better

then at 3 months its great bcse they have head control & can help you out (not as floppy, can latch on their own, etc)

ok: crazy question: how do you know that your supply is low? I’d go to a lactation consultant/LLL mtg just to ‘check’ bcse I’ve heard from my own LC that sometimes moms think their supply is low when it isn’t…

[Anonymous]

Hi Carol,

To answer your question, yes, I do think it sounds like Sandifer’s. Hailey did all the things that you describe, even the eye rolling… usually for her it was eyes rolling up and down with sort of fluttering eyelids. She was officially diagnosed with Sandifer’s by having a normal EEG to rule out seizures, but we pretty much knew before that. Unfortunately, many of these behaviours can be other things as well, so it’s best to talk to your doctor. I would try to catch the behaviours on videotape and then show them to your physician to get his opinion.

The truth is, is that whether it’s Sandifer’s or not really doesn’t matter too much (in my opinion). Sandifer’s is just another pain response, but all of the other behaviours that you describe- the bucking, and feeding difficulties, fussing and crying with feedings- these symptoms alone are enough to indicate that your baby is having pain and in need of relief.

As you’ve heard already, zantac is very weight sensitive and it’s not uncommon for babies to do well on a dose for a short period of time, and then outgrow the dose. I agree with Christine that you might want to look into getting your daughter on a PPI. Feeding difficulties can spiral out of control if not treated properly.

I don’t mean to scare you, but my daughter started off on zantac, and then to a subtherapeutic dose of PPI. For the first two months her feeding difficulties were similar to those that you describe- pulling off the breast (and later the bottle), crying during feeds… she also choked, sputtered, and was chronically irritable in addition to all the arching. I could never get more than 1-2 ounces into her at that age, and then one day she suddenly decided that it hurt too much to eat and that was the beginning of our horrific feeding aversion nightmare.

I have to say that I really disagree with your ped- reflux is a problem if the baby is showing signs of pain and if that pain is interfering with life as it should be for a baby, regardless of issues pertaining to weight, aspiration, and failure to thrive. No one considered my daughter’s issues to be significant because she was gaining weight. Even when she stopped eating and we had to sleep feed her, they still looked at her weight and felt that everything is fine. I honestly believe that if someone had taken us seriously and prescribed her a decent dose of PPI BEFORE all of our issues began, then we could have prevented a lot of the issues that we’re still dealing with now.

I would certainly look into getting an appointment with a ped GI. As Christine mentioned, these appointments can take time. Beware that even as far as ped GIs are concerned, many do not take reflux seriously and underdose medications and minimize symptoms. You might want to take a look into Laura’s into (stickied under the introduce yourself forum) and scroll down a little bit to where it talks about looking for a ped GI…. several people who have visited this forum have posted their doctor recommendations there, and maybe that can help you in finding a good doctor.

Good luck to you. I hope that things improve for you and your daughter soon.

[Anonymous]

First off let me introduce myself. I’m Carol, mommie to Arabella Jean who just turned 3 months old on the 14th.

I see how much this is discussed… and I know it’s a forum for this Syndrome but I kind of feel like a bug… so I apologize ahead of time. I just want some kind of reassurance or acknowledgement that this is what is effecting my daughter.

I figured that my daughter had reflux as she always had the sour look on her face and would scream and buck while eating after we switched to formula from the breast at 10 weeks. I figured at first that it was because it was formula and not breastmilk, so I thought it would get better. I had her on the Enfamil Gentlease at first thinking that would help her gassiness, as she’s been gassy since birth. It seemed to make her fussiness and pain worse so we went back to the normal formula and it seemed to improve to some extent.

I finally got to the point were I couldn’t take it anymore. I hated for my baby to be in pain and I had stuck it out for 3 weeks and it wasn’t getting any better. I called the Pedi… I couldn’t get in for a full week I was at my wits end. I called my family doctor who had seen Arabella previously and asked him if he could see her and do something about this problem. He called in a prescription for Zantac.

She has been on the Zantac for a week… but at a small dosage only .6 mL’s twice a day… I noticed an improvement within 2-3 days… I have now started to notice that she is reverting back to having the serious problems during the feedings like she was.

I went to the Pedi today and he totally agreed that she had reflux and upped the Zantac to .8 mL’s three times a day.

After discussing somethings I mentioned to him that she would buck while eating… she would seem to push off the boppy or my leg with her feet and she would throw her head back. I quickly have to put the bottle down to make sure she doesn’t push herself out of my arms. She also turns her head to one side while doing this. I do confess that when she had these episodes that it isn’t always turning to the same side, but while we have her up and sitting 9 times out of 10 she is looking to her right side. But… when she sleeps she will sleep on both sides of her head, she sleeps on her tummy… it’s the only way she’ll sleep.

I’m so tired of having my baby be in pain. It’s stressful to me during the feedings when I can’t figure out what is wrong with her, why she won’t eat, and why she is screaming!

She almost never eats more than 2-3 ounces at a time… and I’ve noticed that babies at her age are at least eating 4-6 ounces at a time. Some days it’s hard to get her to eat the 2 ounces. I let her eat until she screams… my Pedi agrees that she’s not being overfed, but that she is still gaining weight. He told me that they don’t really start to worry about the reflux unless they are not gaining weight, aspirating the spit up, or they won’t eat at all.

I also noticed in a post someone mentioned what they thought was “rapid eye movement” I’ve noticed Arabella doing this almost from birth… my Mom told me that was normal since babies don’t have full control over there muscles, but I’m still noticing it… she doesn’t neccessarily roll her eyes into her head but she does the quick back and forth movements with hers… not when she is bucking though..

I believe that this is a big enough problem to go back… BUT he did agree he wanted to see her again in 2-3 weeks to see how she was doing. After reading through some of these posts I wonder if I should be getting an appt. with a GI specialist instead of waiting.

I talked with my Mom tonight and she agreed that we would wait at least a week to see how upping the medicine does for her… to see if it will revert back to how she was before as it did this past week.

I guess my point of this post to see if this could really be Sandifer’s and if I should be scheduling an appt. with the GI specialist instead of waiting around to see if the Zantac works….

Really I’m very confused… and a bit worried… I just want a little reassuarnace from some mommies who have gone through this… and maybe a “yes this sounds like Sandifer’s” or a “no this just sounds like reflux”…

Thank you in advance ladies!!! I much appreciate your time reading this and responding!!!

[hellbennt]

there are a lot of recipe & snack suggestions here on this site- I’ve linked them all together the best as I could– the 2 places to find them are from my ‘groupie intro’ – there’s a breastfeeding your gerdling ‘section’ & also there’s a section about what to feed your baby/toddler & there’s mspi suggestions for the kids that would work for you, too

and from the mspi page that’s stickied…it’s a bit to go through, but others did post what worked for them, etc…

as for babywearing, where do you live? maybe you could find some local mamas to show you their carriers etc…if you don’t want to post to the whole world where you live you can send me a private msg or email via the buttons on the bottom of this post

[Anonymous]

Yes, I totally concur with the “honeymoon” phase when trialing new formulas. Brodie went from breastmilk to Similac Advance to Isomil. He drank 6 oz. o f Isomil for the first feeding and he was only 6 weeks old. Several days after that he refused to eat and it went downhill until we ended up on Alimentum. I would keep pumping just in case so you don’t lose your milk. Good Luck!!!!

[Anonymous]

My 5 weeks old has reflux and was diagnosed when 2 days old. She was put on Zantac at 2 weeks and it worked for a while and now things just seem to be getting worse. I read that zantac isn’t the greatest thing to put babies on and while I am going to call and get her in tomorrow (if possible) I just dont know what else to do.

I have tried everything I can find on the internet. She sleeps elevated and on her left side. She eats for only like 15 minutes at a time about every two hours. I have cut everything out of my diet that I think could be making the problems worse.

She makes god awful high squel noises, she doesn’t cry during eating (she pops off a lot and squirms, rolls into a ball and than arches her back) but shortly after she starts fussing and wiggling around and sometimes crying, usually until she spits up and when she spits up she gives a short cry afterwards. I keep her elevated after feeding her. To make matters worse, she started spiting up her zantac. This is the short version of all we’re going through. I dont take my prevacid cause I was unsure if it passes through breastmilk but at this point in time, I don’t really care, anything to help her out.

She will also spit up at various times during the day and sometimes its forecful and sometimes it’s a lot of spit up. Also, her spit up smells like throw up. I do not know if this is normal or not.

UGG I just need some help and the best help is from those experienced. Thanks a ton!

[hellbennt]

oh yeah, the best thing that helped me w/ my cracked nipples:

http://www.mothermates.com/ (yikes looks like it’s only in canada?)

ok, looks like you can buy them here: http://www.positivelybreastfeeding.ca/shop/breastfeeding/sor e_nip/MothermatesHydrogel.htm

my lactation consultant helped me…it took only like 4 days to have my nipples back to normal, phew!

[Anonymous]

HELP!! I have a one week old son who I am trying to breastfeed but my left nipple is severely cracked and bleeding and killing me. I really want to stop breastfeeding as it just isn’t for me, but I refuse to stop if he can’t tolerate formula. Yesterday he started out taking bottles of Enfamil Lipil but threw them up and then we switched to soy formula and he threw those up too. I know he has reflux, but does NOT throw up or cry with breastmilk.

My daughter had severe reflux and I nursed for a week and then stopped due to her pulling off the breast and screaming and then pumped for a month and quit. She ultimately ended up on Nutramigen and Prilosec after many trials of medicine. She is now a very happy 3 year old with a milk allergy that we just found out about when she was 2 1/2.

Sorry this is so long, but I just wanted to give some background information to try to get some help. It is likely that my son has a milk allergy along with reflux, but I don’t know what to do if Nutramigen doesn’t work. I am truly miserable with breastfeeding, but won’t stop if formula hurts him.

Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

i wouldn’t give up the breast feeding until you had tried a higher dose of the omeprazole, and a switch to prevacid. if the doc won’t up the omeprazole, maybe he would be willing to try the switch to prevacid? for some reason, it just seems to work better for so many people.

our ped originally wanted me to stop breastfeeding and try a hypoallergenic formula—-but my husband didn’t want me to do it, so i didn’t. turns out it wouldn’t have made a differenc anyway—she had a hiatal hernia. i think too many doctors are too quick to blame GI problems on mother’s milk.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone.

Natalia-
He’s on compounded Prevacid – 1.5mg 3xday. This is the marci-kids suggested dose for him, and he’s done really well on it. He hasn’t had anymore pain since we started it anyway. Obviously it doesn’t help the spitting up itself much (it actually does help a little though). He’s also on Erythromycin -0.5 ml 3xday. for motility. It also seems to help some.

Christine-
We actually haven’t taken him in to the doctor since his 6-mo. checkup (He has his 9-mo checkup next week), and it was right after that that his weight gain started getting worse. Before that he was always gaining steadily, although slowly. Since then we’ve just been waiting to see the GI, and meanwhle trying to find solutions to the excessive spitting up – thickening, etc. We also had a swallow study done, and that’s when he was put on Erythromycin for motility. I just think there’s not much we can do until we see the GI. I personally think it must be an emptying problem or something like that. I guess we’ll find out.

Lori-
Unfortunately, Bryce has always been on some kind of a feeding tube. He had open heart surgery when he was 12 days old, and was on IV’s until he was almost 1 month old, so he really never had a whole lot of time to practice breastfeeding or bottle feeding. That in combination with his cleft palate left him unable to eat orally. So we brought him home from the hospital (at 1 mo) with an NG tube. When he was 4 months old we had the G-Tube placed, and he’s had it since. We practice every day with the oral feeding, but so far have only been able to get him to eat around 2 oz. orally.

[hellbennt]

I’m with Andrea.

also, if you want to continue breastfeeding (if this gives him comfort, etc) and you don’t want to switch to formula until you know for sure that you have to, then this would be another reason to find another doctor/opinion

personally, I’d want a LOT of testing- that’s just me- I’d want an endoscopy to see what the heck is going on on there, I’d want allergy testing of some sort(because celiac and wheat allergies are 2 seperate things), celiac testing…

there’s a post from the MSPI link about misdiagnoses- this might help as well…