Colic, pacifiers, bottles and a soon to go crazy me.

ooohh and btw, i exclusively bf my little one, and in the first few months my baby would have random colicy spurts, i stopped eating gassy foods and milk and used a colic water that really helped a lot, and a few times i realized what i thought was colic were really growth spurts... I say (although i am not a DR) follow your intuition, if you listen in , you will see its stronger than ever before.

Overfed schmoverfed. Seriously, the doctor said she's 400g OVERWEIGHT? I'd be changing paediatricians, pronto. I'm afraid I don't have any advice for you but I just wanted to say I'm pretty damn sure you're doing a super job of feeding her and her being overweight at two months old is utter rubbish. . Just remember that your body and baby know what they are doing, and its probbly all 100% the right thing! your milk supply is made specifically for your growing baby, and changes to its needs...

PS please feel free to e-mail me if you would like. I have a couple of other thoughts which may or may not be relevant, so please let me know if you'd like to explore other things which haven't been mentioned on the thread. xx

Oh dear, I'm sorry you're still having so many struggles. You've had some lovely responses and suggestions, and I hope they've helped. First off, I 'm glad you're not concerned by the weight issue. The WHO weight charts that kiwispiers mentions are here: http://rcpch.hosting.opendev.net/Research/UK-WHO-Growth-Charts . Now, I'm not trained in the use of the charts and so cannot officially interpret them, but have a look and see if going on what you've said it doesn't look as if your daughter was pretty much on the same percentile (50th) when she was born and now! (Remember that weight gain is always taken from the lowest point - if you have any weight measurements from her first few days of life you could use those, but otherwise you could assume that she regained birthweight at 2 weeks of age unless there is evidence to the contrary.) Did your doctor explain why he felt that she was 400 g heavier than she "should have been?" Now, your main concern is her discomfort, or colic. This is not uncommon, and can be very distressing and tiring for parents :(. The label "colic," though, unfortunately does not tell us much and is generally used to describe an uncomfortable baby who cries a lot. I assume that the doctor has given her a clean bill of health, which hopefully is reassuring - do you know if he considered and ruled out reflux? If nothing else works, it may be worth revisiting that at a later stage - but hopefully you will not need to. Does she cry at any time during the day, or is her crying generally limited to the evenings? Evening crying is a typical colic pattern, and while it is tough for parents there are some ways which may help and it is typically outgrown by around three months. (Looking at sleep patterns as per Hello Kitty's suggestion may also help if this is the case.) Dr Jack Newman (breastfeeding guru) identifies three things which can cause all-day colic-like symptoms in a baby (a couple have already been mentioned). You might like to look at http://www.drjacknewman.com/help/Colic%20in%20the%20Breastfed%20Baby.asp to see if anything resonates. From what you've said about wanting to be permanently on the breast, while this may be normal behaviour for a baby with high sucking needs, I wonder if she's having trouble emptying the breast. I'm so glad you saw Paula earlier - did she identify any issues with milk transfer? It might be worth revisiting positioning and attachment to make sure she's getting a good mouthful of breast (as babies grow, their positioning while feeding changes and even small changes can affect the amount of milk they're able to get). Experimenting with different positions might help; underarm, cradle (many mums find the cross-cradle hold great in the early days but harder later on), side-lying and laid-back (a la www.biologicalnurturing.com). [url=http://www.drjacknewman.com/help/Breast-compression.asp'>Breast compressions[/url'> can also help to ensure that baby is getting enough milk (particularly "hindmilk" towards the end of a feed). If you're not already using one, a sling/baby carrier might help soothe her and allow you to move around and get things done/go where you want to go without being confined to your nursing station at home. These are also great for other friends/family members to use with baby. You may perhaps find that she's happier when in motion. *Hugs* some breastfeeding issues can take a long time to get to the bottom of, and it's sometimes a case of trial and error when trying to find what works in a particular situation. Sorry for all the questions and the number of links. Please *do* let's keep talking until you find a way forward that you are happy with (and remember, any decision you make is your decision, and therefore the right one by definition - don't let anyone tell you any differently!). You are doing such a fab job to perservere and your little girl is very lucky to have such a loving mama. xx

i second everyones comments to change your ped. My DS2 was born 3.65kg and at 3 months was 7.2 kgs...at 12 months he is about 12 kgs and totally on the 85-90 percentage of the chart. I still B/f him 5-6 times a day and he eats about 3 meals and a fruit snack. their only job is to eat and grow....

I'm not so much worried about the overfed comment (she was 3.5 kilos at birth and is now 5 at 2 months) than I am about her not being settled. Am I mistaking her colic cries for hunger? [quote'> I had my LO at the Dr 2 days ago, she is 7 weeks old. She was 2.8kgs at birth and 5.43 now, Dr said nothing about her being overweight. In fact he seemed pleased with her rate of growth....

I'm not so much worried about the overfed comment (she was 3.5 kilos at birth and is now 5 at 2 months) than I am about her not being settled. Am I mistaking her colic cries for hunger? I really think we have to move to bottles to keep my sanity. I'm sure my daughter would rather have a happy mum than a constant struggle at the breast. But everytime I make a decision, someone tells me how I'm doing the wrong thing. I'm waitng to hear from BFC too. I've bothered her so many times in the last couple of months with endless questions that I almost feel ashamed now. Really, is motherhood supposed to be this hard? :( I'm sure BFC does not feel bothered at all. Dont worry. Dont let people make you think you're making the wrong decisions. You know what is best for you and your baby, I'm sure!!

A couple of suggestions which may or may not be useful 1) Some babies just like to feed frequently but one thing that can cause this is having too much foremilk which could happen because you have a lot of milk in general or because you are switching breasts too soon. Foremilk is high in sugar and low in fat, which means baby gets a "sugar rush" but then is hungry again soon. The excess lactose in the foremilk also gives lactose intolerance type symptoms (bloaty gassy tummy etc). 2) your baby could have reflux, and this could actually be caused by eating too much. What can happen is that overeating causes the reflux pain, and then your baby wants to nurse because, ironically it relieves the pain (temporarily at least). Reflux is often accompanied by excessive spilling, but not always, sometimes the stomach acid can go up their throat and then be swallowed back down. Anyway either of these 2 issues can be greatly helped by only giving your baby one side per feed, which means that she will get more hindmilk than if you switched breasts say after 10 minutes. If you have an issue with a foremilk imbalance you can try pumping for a while directly before a feed, then discarding this milk and putting the baby to breast for the remaining hindmilk. It might be that this doesn't apply to you, but giving expressed milk/formula and boobie sounds like a pain in the backside anyway, some babies really do just like to suck, mine did for the first few months but luckily he did like his dummy. The good news is they get less "sucky" after about 3 months. You might still end up with a snacker who feeds often but you'll probably find the feeds are much shorter at least so its not so bad. Finally a lot of the peds use the wrong charts for growth, a normal pattern for breastfed babies is a higher rate of growth than FF for the first 3 months and a lower rate than FF after that. Unfortunately most pediatricians in the ME seem to still be using the CDC charts which are for FF fed babies but the WHO charts are available online. Its a bit confusing since you are mixed feeding, I think you should try cutting back on the formula if you can since you obviously don't need it for weight gain but I'm not suggesting you let your baby cry, 2 months is too young to self settle IMHO. I haven't often heard of exclusively expressing working for very long, I don't think it gives the body enough feedback and your supply will really drop. But do what you need to do to get though this.

I think it's pretty clear that if you're giving her a majority breastfeed and she's putting on weight like a trooper, then you have no worries about your supply. Carry on breastfeeding (even without supplementing with formula) if you want to - or carry on with the formula but stop expressing... it's about finding what works for you. Colic seems to be banded around as a catch-all for an unsettled baby. Crying isn't colic - screaming incessantly as if in severe pain *may* be. We thought DS had colic. He would start screaming inconsolably at about 19h30 every night and I'd feed him and he'd cry more, so I'd cuddle him and he'd scream, so I'd shove some Infacol down him to no avail, then try burping him, which would make it worse... then I'd give him another cuddle, then lay him down to sleep, which he wouldn't - he'd just scream more, so I'd try feeding him again, which made him worse. Classic signs of "colic" but it wasn't... he was overtired. After 6 weeks of him screaming every day from 19h30 until 1h or 3h in the morning (I'd somehow fall asleep, exhausted with him screaming in my ear), I happened to put him down at 19h in his cot and let the room go dark... he fell asleep, only woke at 23h for a normal feed and then slept again until his next nightly feed. Sometimes you just can't see the wood for the trees.

Hey Joanna, I was struggling with a low supply too. Or that was what I was told. I saw Paula too and started expressing to get my supply up. The milk that was expressed started supplementing the formula feeds that I was giving DD. We went down from 4 formula feeds to 2. brilliant! :) so we have supply issue sorted (if there was one). You went through so much, Stovetop. I know what you mean about sanity, cry, hunger. Watching the clock (feeding DD every 2-3 hours) helped us. DD usually had colics after feeds. Very upsetting, but it will pass eventually as soon as her digestive system will develop. You do whatever is good for you and your baby (formula is also for babies!:)) I still think that mother nature could develop the option for men to develop boobs after baby is born. World would be a different place ;) X ETA - I would put DD on the b*ob and wait until she comes off. If she cries between feeds - I checked her nappy, comfort her, rock her, take her for a walk, massage her. IF this was a hunger cry I would offer a bo*b of course :) It is all ahead of me again and I am dreading it indeed ;) Not a piece of cake. edited by JoannaS on 12/05/2011 <em>edited by JoannaS on 12/05/2011</em>

Sorry no advice from me either but it sounds like you're doing fantastically for her to have put on all that weight!! that is a good thing!! Good on you for sticking with the breast feeding despite all the difficulty. Im sure you'll get lots of good advice from the other ladies here

Stovetop, Congratulations. I am sure you are doing a great job. I dont quite get your pead what is 400g than LO should be? Honestly. Babies love to be attached to boobs for food and comfort. If you can do it - do it. If not you are expressing and doing fab! It is supply and demand mechanism. The more baby latch - the more milk your boobs will produce and it seems you do not have a prob with supply (the supply prob is really very very rare. Just think about tribes in Africa - they do just fine without supplementing). Ok - follow your instinct and listen to your baby. We did not have a schedule for DD until much later. I BF on demand until 2.5 months (very tiring), came back to work when she was 2.5 months was bf and expressing until 5 months and supplementing with formula 5-8 months. I think she went off the breast at 8 months. I used to offer a b*ob whenever DD was crying, she started to have a problem with proper latching and thats where I called Paula Miller (lc) and she advised to offer a b*ob every 2-3 hours (dd was about 6 weeks at the time). It did work. There may be 21331 reasons why your LO will not self sooth. HTH X <em>edited by JoannaS on 12/05/2011</em>

Im with DC sorry no advice as to how to control her hunger ect. But seriously DD is 8kgs at 5months. Her thighs are twice the size of my wrists. My Dr said nothing about her weight even though she is roughly in the 80% percentile. Do what you need to do babe. I switched to exclusivly expressed BM at 2 months but to be honest i wish i didnt as it was just a straight train to formula. Do what you need to do and im sure there are other mummies on here that can give you some fab BF aadvice. :) X

Overfed schmoverfed. Seriously, the doctor said she's 400g OVERWEIGHT? I'd be changing paediatricians, pronto. I'm afraid I don't have any advice for you but I just wanted to say I'm pretty damn sure you're doing a super job of feeding her and her being overweight at two months old is utter rubbish. BFC gives brilliant advice on BF. I'm sure she'll be along soon and be able to help.