My little girl is breast feeding!! I'm so happy I feel like crying. I bought nipple shields on the advice of my health visitor, they just arrived and she latched straight on more than 10 minutes ago and is still going!! It's only the first time,but fingers crossed it continues! I'm so glad I continued expressing for so long so she has only ever had breast milk
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
I could give it a go! She's started to get the hang of drawing.
Thing is, she's a strange child in that she's not that keen on mess! If she's finished playing, she'll put the toys back in the box and push the box back in the cupboard, she'll crawl around picking up tiny bits of paper or tissue and give them to me to put in the bin.
I think I have an OCD toddler!!!
I'm fine! Totally fine. I don't know why it's coming out all loud and squeaky, 'cause really, I'm fine!
Never too young for finger painting! All kids, no matter what age, love paint. I remember the first time Faith painted...She had black all over her face lol.
Faith doesn't like messy hands. Maybe the foster carer encourages her to tidy up, Beckie?
You can make home made play doh, look up salt dough. Bet she would enjoy that. Also make a sensory box for her full of random thing such as sponges and other touchy feely thing. Just go to pound land and have a look most of Elliot's is from the cleaning section. Empty plastic milk cartons with rice or pasta in. She could make the pasta one herself by putting in the pieces. Egg cups and tennis balls can hold a little ones attention for ages. Anything that can be put in and out so a cup and ball or something would work too. Balls are also good for encouraging movement.
If they don't mind messy play then cornflour and water makes great slime. Also some lift the flap books or black and white books. Sainsburys do good kids books I think. Stacking cups and anything that lights up. If you has 3G on your phone then YouTube had some fab videos. I recommend gigglebellies!
Aurora is still breast feeding. She managed it all night! I'm not convinced her latch is great, but she is definitely getting milk (and getting it all over her face sometimes!!)
She has gained 2lbs as well. She is a chunky little thing!
I'm back to expressing again. I think Aurora might have reflux. She wouldn't go back down to sleep in her Moses basket last night after getting up at 2am. She eventually went to sleep at 5 in her vibrating chair. She sounds like she is in massive amounts of pain after she feeds, its heartbreaking.
The gp can't see us until Friday and I don't think he sounded terribly convinced with what I was telling him when he phoned to do a telephone consultation :(
GPs can be complete and utter crap. Mine repeatedly told me to try eating milk products again despite repeatedly having the same experience every time we tried!
If you think something isn't right fight to be heard if you have to because you know her best.
If it is reflux have you tried propping her moses basket up at an angle? We raised poppy's crib mattress using towels which helped when she was really small. We tried the gaviscon but it didn't make much difference for us and considering she wasn't losing weight it wasn't worth it.
Is she projectile vomiting? Or is it coming up and going back down because if it goes back down that is called silent reflux and apparently a lot of GPs don't understand that and so say that unless baby is projectile vomiting it isn't reflux. I think if it is that it is just something that improves over time which isn't what you want to hear I'm sure! Poppy was constantly projectile vomiting and everything was always soaked but in the last 6 weeks or so she has started swallowing when it comes up more often and it generally doesn't bother her like it used to.
You say you are expressing again, is that because she isn't latching or because she is coming off? Was it you who mentioned having a fast let-down that made her sound like she was choking on milk? If so just taking her off when you let down and catching the milk in a muslin might help until she is more able to deal with the flow.
You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.
I am back to expressing again because she is back to being really fussy when I put her to the breast. Also, she doesn't like being touched/held when she is breast feeding, so i have to lie her on a pillow then put my nipple into her mouth, but that makes her spit up worse. And I'm no convinced her latch is great and using nipple shields I think she is managing to inhale a lot of air -/
She doesn't projectile vomit, but when I lie her down quite a lot of milky drool comes up. Today it was 1.5hours after feeding her before she was spitting up, and that was after being in her car seat in the car and she was fine.
I tried propping up her mattress, she was fine with it for 2.5 hours, then refused to go back down again.
Lucas had bad reflux and got refered for a consultant and the children's hospital. At first we thought it was colic because he was actually that sick for about a month but then started projectile vomitting and he had to have a bib on constantly because he would be sick up to 4 hours after his last bottle. We were given meds from the gp who just said it would go away but when we got the health visitor around and we feed him with her there and she saw him being sick then she made us appointment with the doctor and they took it more serious and they could see him being sick just sitting there and see the mess on his bib. Then he got refered to the hospital for an ultrasound where they could see it happening. The medication definatlt helped and he started gaining weight again but the best thing they said was to start weaning early and it stopped pretty much straight away.
Anyway what I would do is do the bib thing and keep it on in the doctors to show them the mess or get your health visitor around to see what happens after a feed.
Poor Aurora, Kirsty. It does sound like it might be reflux. I'm hoping you won't have to resort to going into sick kids to try and get the result you need as some parents have to do. Hopefully you get the results soon.
Faith start pre-school last week and loves it. Got in a bad mood with daddy yesterday because she wasn't well and he made the decision not to put her along as I was working, but I put her back today as she was a lot brighter. She's that tired after that nursery that we've managed to get her old bedtime back to around 7pm, and she rarely bothers to play around in her room anymore as she's so tired.
We're also still giving her the decision of no nappy or nappy at bedtime. and for the past week she's decided on no nappy. She's been dry the past 4 mornings. We're super proud of her.
I will fight her case. I'm getting good at putting my foot down where doctors are involved. I think the health visitor is going to call tomorrow to see how we are getting on
I'm keeping my fingers crossed her appointment on Friday goes well and we get some answers. We have been giving her a dummy today to calm her down, sucking on something seems to help her but she isn't actually hungry so won't take food :( She has fallen asleep during her last feed, so I gently winded her and she is asleep across my tummy at the moment. I'm scared to move incase I wake her!!
I have a big issue with babies and the idea of reflux - which, while it does exist, is relatively rare. The amount of babies being given antacids over the last 4 or 5 years is alarming and dangerous.
It sounds more that she is just having wind. Spilling like that, and being unsettled at times, is very normal. You have said that you don't think her latch is great and she is taking in air which definitely fits with the spilling, wanting to suck on things, and being fussy often. Personally I would suggest trying to feed her without the nipple shields and responding to her feeding cues as early as you can so that she's not starving when she latches to try to prevent her gulping. Particularly as you have mentioned a strong let down. Lying back might help due to gravity. Winding her after feeds sounds like an important thing for her (as not all babies need this but I think she definitely does, at least at the moment), but don't spend hours trying to get a burp up if she seems settled.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break
that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain.
There are only two ways in which one can live their life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is.
Also really concentrate on getting her latch as deep as possible so she's not sucking in air. Hopefully the health visitor can observe a feed and give you some latching tips if you have trouble.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break
that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain.
There are only two ways in which one can live their life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is.
She won't latch at all without Nipple shields, the hospital decided the way to assist with breastfeeding was to get her head and force it onto my boob while she screamed. That is why yesterda all she got for food was expressed breast milk from a bottle. She didn't inhale any air from the bottle and she still spit up loads, despite being winded for 10-15 minutes after each feed. She gets fed within 5 minutes of wanting fed at most, sometimes I still wake her up for her feeds and she is fed straight away.
