Breast fed DGS causing havoc!

thatbags - I suggested my daughter wrap her baby as you describe and got the horrified look Evidently, it's now banned along with lying them on their side or tummy.

I had a similar baby. He was permanently hungry even when he couldn't be. He was gaining weight but I was exhausted mentally and physically. I tried leaving him to cry, swaddling him...all the advice but nothing worked.

One afternoon when he was 3 months old my health visitor (a very sensible lady) visited and found me in tears. I was so tired I didn't know what to do with myself and he was grizzling for food again.

She summed up the situation at a glance and told me that whilst breast was best sometimes it just didn't fill a baby esp he/she was very big (my son was 10lb 5oz at birth) and that he needed a bottle. I was horrified. It was the time of breast feed or you're a total failure as a mother. In fact when he was born the ward was split into to halves. One had the breast feeders and the midwives called them the good mums. The other half were know just as the mums.

She went to her car and came back with a ready mixed bottle. I sobbed as I put it in his mouth but the look on his face was amazing. It was as if he was saying, "At last, foooooood!"

When he'd had enough he promptly fell asleep which was unheard of and woke up happy not grizzly.

I felt terrible. Blamed myself. Thought my milk was no good etc. but she said it was perfectly good milk but I just couldn't produce enough to fill him because he never left me alone long enough for my breast to fill.

After that he stayed on the bottle. He slept and woke happy. I slept and recovered. Motherhood became the joy it was supposed to be.

My DDs use a mixture of bottle and breast and that seems to work for them.

DDIL has said that she wished that the pressures to breastfeed were tempered with common sense, DGS was constantly hungry but she felt that she had to persevere regardless, to the point of exhaustion. Even when he guzzled a full bottle of expressed milk following a feed she felt she was 'failing' if she didn't carry on.

Somewhat later she found out that 7 out of the 9 mums in her NCT group had stopped bf by 4 weeks, but didn't feel able to tell anyone for fear of being considered not doing their best

DS was a long, skinny baby with hollow legs, all the bf in the world wouldn't have satisfied him! At 6 weeks he was on a bottle and slept through the night, after me feeding him virtually 24/7.

It saved my sanity.

My DGS is a similar age- just over 5 months. DIL was trying to stick to no solids till 6 months but gave in a few weeks ago. He is now taking pureed veg and fruits regularly . He has also tackled a bread stick- carefully watched over for fear of choking. I think the trouble with these rules is that they take no account of the differences in the size of babies. DGS is a big baby as well. He doesn't like a bottle- refusing even to take expressed milk when I baby sit, but wil eat from a spoon for me. DIL uses home made purees and pouches of puree which are very liquid. Might be worth trying some.

iam, that's interesting. Did your DD say why swaddling is banned?

That's certainly changed in the last 21 months Iam! No wonder new mums are so confused by advice from the 'experts'

Two of my DSs had a supplementary bottle at night partly to help them to sleep longer and also to get them used to Dad feeding them part-time when Mum was ready to go back to work. The older of the two was a big, hungry baby of 10lbs 9oz and the younger about 1lb lighter.

Meant to say DGSs in that last post, not DSs, though they were quite hungry babies too.

My ds was 9lb 6oz and I only lasted 6 weeks before resorting to a bottle before bedtime. It made a huge difference. He would sleep from 5pm until I woke him about noon (!!!) and then I would have to make sure he was well fed before he nodded off again at 5pm!

My milk just wasn't enough for him.

He had the bottle, not me!!

The early days of parenting is so exhausting, isn't it? We forget how hard it was I think. I started with twins! Was in tears of exhaustion every day for about 6 months until I got a night's sleep. Watching my DDs brings it all back!

Sounds like the your DGS is doing a growth spurt though Katek. I do remember that my BF children did this every so often which I was told was building up the milk supply.