Have an update on the whole weight affair. We got an urgent referral from our GP to go to the bigger hospital since he couldn't see anything wrong with her and we were there for 7 hours doing exams, blood tests, etc. As expected, they too have no idea (blood normal, is happy, seems healthy at least), and they want me to go dairy free to see if she has an allergy (though she has no other symptoms). What joy. I tried the same with Mia when she was super gassy as a baby and it achieved nothing but my own misery since the morning latte is the only thing that keeps me going through the day, the only thing I look forward to after these horrible nights, and the only thing getting me out of bed and functioning. They also wanted us to try dairy free formula to see how she'd respond, but as I mentioned before, she won't take the bottle and wouldn't even after they had me make her wait for three hours to make her extra hungry. Instead I got to listen to my apparently underfed baby cry for hours because she was hungry and I wasn't allowed to feed her. Then they told me I could either stay over night for observation (impossible with another kid) or come back again and they would next use feeding tubes to force feed her and test different formulas. I negotiated one week to see if cutting the dairy from my diet would help, but that failing, it's back to the hospital for feeding tubes. Wahey.
*Hugs* forget about the house, it can become a landfill right now. Just focus on you and the babies.
If you're exclusively breasfeeding and working from home, why are they having you pump? It sounds like she's feeding often enough to keep your milk supply up. Charlotte definitely had a bit of a rainbow but she ended up holding steady at the 20th percentile, they never had me coming in weekly so I didn't see the weeks she didn't gain weight or even when, I'm sure, she dropped lower than that.
You're doing great, managing two young children by yourself while the SO is lucky enough to go to work each day and escape is hard. Especially when you aren't getting enough sleep.
Have you tried eating nuts? I ate so many with Henry in those first few weeks that I made myself sick (had no idea too many nuts could actually hurt you) still all that fat I'm sure my milk was a milkshake. If you need to boost supply, oats and protein are good for that. I've got a recipe for some no bake cookies that work pretty well and are super yummy, especially if you're tired of straight up oatmeal.
If you need to vent again we're here.
Also, if Emma isn't acting hungry and is otherwise healthy try not to let them stress you out. Its very possible she has a growth spurt and laughs in their faces when she jumps back up to a percentile they're happier with.
Thanks, chica. The house isn't exactly pristine, but I try not to leave caked food on the walls at least. I'm sure my husband would understand if I let it slip more, but I think the mess would only contribute to the overall poor mood. I won't dwell on it, at any rate. Food-wise, almonds were part of the shakes I was drinking and I'd put pistachios on the plain oatmeal when I made it. I'd love the no-bake recipe if you have it handy. But, not sure I can have it now ('dairy denied' as mentioned above). As for Emma, just cross your fingers for me this week. Last chance, it seems.
We kind of had that issue after our kid was born. She lost some weight in the first week and then just didn't gain any weight for almost 2 months. We had plenty of appointments with the doctor and the lactation consultant, but never could pinpoint an issue. Is your baby still having plenty of wet diapers? Ultimately, our doctor said that because our baby was having a large number of wet diapers (and wasn't diabetic or anything like that) she was probably fine and her weight would pick up eventually. After 8 weeks, she was still holding even, so we started supplementing her feedings. My wife would breast feed and then I would give the baby a bottle. We did that for a couple of weeks and the baby started putting on weight. We only did that for maybe 4 weeks, and since then everything has been fine with her weight. The doctor told us to expect our baby to not even be on the weight growth chart for the first year, but she is in the 60th for her weight now. She was just a long skinny baby for a while. I hope things work out though. I know how stressful this can be and it is not fun. Have they had you do a weigh-in, feed her, then weigh her immediately after to try and measure how much she is getting in a feeding?
Cheers for sharing your experience. Hoping we see a similar outcome. She is having plenty of wet nappies and all three doctors that saw her said she was well-hydrated, alert, etc., but they're not satisfied and she's past 10 weeks now with no improvement. I've tried supplementing, as I mentioned, but she won't take the bottle whether it has formula or breastmilk. I have no issues topping her up with whatever if it'll help, but nothing is working. We just got two more types to try and I had some small success with the Mam bottle this morning, so hopefully I can start doing this at least twice a day to add to her intake. For the feeding and weigh-in, they had not done that yet, but I imagine they wanted to had I stayed over night for observation. The health visitor will be coming (again) and bringing her scale this time, so I'll ask her to try it then.
Have you considered formula supplementation?
Sadly she won't take it. They've given us new formula (Neocate?) and I've got some new bottles, though, so fingers crossed.
That's some good news,
Tbm24.
Yeah, from check-ups at weeks 2 to 4 our kid lost weight and we immediately had to put her on formula with frequent in-home visits from the mid-wives. Shortly one of them gave us feeding tubes so that she could get the formula via breastfeeding and not hork it down too quickly/easily from a bottle. We were told to pump a ton as well— I think the idea is that potentially the kid isn't sucking enough so it's too encourage milk production. It didn't help for us— my partner's breasts are doing what they can but it's not enough (despite various attempts to boost production (oats, teas, dark incantations— only thing that helped was a prescription for domperidone, but it wasn't enough). I think from week 4 to 6 months, 75-90% of the milk she got in a day is formula. This was hard on my partner who wanted to breast feed exclusively; I was never breastfed and obviously turned out amazing— so feel a lot more pragmatic about it.
All that would be possible...if I didn't have to mind a 2 yr old (makes pumping nigh impossible more than 1-2x a day) and baby would take the damn bottle. :/ Sorry to hear you guys had to deal with that, though. As much as I didn't care initially about breastfeeding (lukewarm about it, really) it's pretty demoralizing when it doesn't work or work as it should. Everyone keeps looking at you, expecting things or pressuring or there's this lingering implication that you're doing something wrong or don't care enough, etc. The whole thing just sucks. I'll look into the domperidone, though. Thanks, CD.
