Feeding-Induced “House Arrest”

Last week was a pretty quiet one for us. We had Hudson’s hearing test up the road in Beverley (I was a little nervous about taking him by myself in the car in case he cried the whole way so my Mum came along too which was really helpful and kept him calm!) and one of my friends Beckh and her lovely daughter Harper came to meet him. It was pretty funny and exciting to see the difference between my newborn and 8-month-old Harper and to see how quickly he will grow-up and change. All the more reason to make the most of every cuddly, snugly newborn day at the moment.

Over the last week Hudson’s feeding has become almost constant some days which has made it really hard to do anything at all. I know feeding him is the best way to comfort him, even if that is the only reason he wants to latch on rather than the fact he’s hungry or thirsty, but by the end of the week I was finding it very tiring. Also it meant Sam had very limited cuddle time with Hudson as he only wanted to be help, cuddled and fed by me most of the time. It got to the point last Monday where the maximum amount of time I had without Hudson feeding/being on my boob was 45minutes. I know I’m feeding on demand but even I knew that wasn’t quite right.

Colic

We managed to make it to the Health Visitor’s drop-in clinic at our local Children’s Centre – just! My sister came along too and we only managed two minutes with Hudson in the pram before he cried non-stop so I carried him the rest of the way up the road! Luckily I had brought the baby carrier with us and I was going to put him in it at the Children’s Centre after he got weighed.

Hes doing really well with his weight gain – he’s gone up from 8lb 9oz to 9lb 13oz in two weeks so I’m pleased that he’s obviously taken so well to breastfeeding. I then asked the health visitor about his crying fits and she said it sounds like he might have a bit of colic and potentially some reflux. Poor thing. I felt so bad for only asking now and really bad that he had been feeling uncomfortable for a week or so.

She reccommended I get some Infacol to give him before each feed and I asked her about a dummy to see if that would help shift his trapped wind. Sam and I were never sure about getting him a dummy as we didn’t want to negatively impact on his breastfeeding or have him get attached to one. But we thought we may as well try it. I started giving Hudson the Infacol before each feed from lunchtime on Monday and by Monday night he was a calm and contented baby again! He would take a feed then settle down and even had a nice sleep for a couple of hours that evening whilst having cuddles with Sam. I have tried him with the dummy a couple of times this week after he had a long feed then started to go red-faced and cry when I put him down in the Moses basket or bouncy chair and, even though he only sucked it for a couple of minutes before spitting it out it did soothe him.

Some people don’t believe Colic is really the cause of new babies’ uncontrollable crying in the first few months. They believe that it is down to the baby adjusting to life outside the womb during the “fourth trimester” and they just want to be cuddles and loved. I do agree with this and am practising attachment parenting but the Infacol has made a difference this week so who knows. Author, doula and hypnobirthing teacher Sarah Ockwell-Smith (author of “The Gentle Sleep” Book) wrote an interesting article about it.