Apologies in advance for the essay - it's hard to know what symptoms are significant and which aren't so I'll just outline the whole saga!
My daughter Lyra is 5 weeks old tomorrow and breastfed.
The last couple of weeks she was an almost constant feeder and didn't seem to sleep as much as most other babies or the averages outlined in literature. This started after a few bouts of diarrhoea after which she fed for two days constantly (no exaggeration) to rehydrate. Doctor said this was nothing to worry about unless she got dehydrated and that she was doing the right thing by feeding so much and giving herself all the antibodies she needed. Since those two days she was no longer constant but roughly at least every hour and a substantial feed of at least 20 mins a time.
Lyra's always been a bit of a 'sicky' baby - milk coming back up and spilling out with a lot of gassy gruzzling and hiccuping. We were advised at first this was probably just possetting because I produced too much milk and occasionally she does choke while feeding which supports that theory. As a result though she was uncomfortable sleeping on her back in the moses basket as was too gassy and spent most nights in bed lying on us tummy to tummy. The last couple of days though it seems like she is vomiting much more than normal with more force - and in most cases we are certain it is her entire feed. Sometimes it's watery with curdles and other times thick and creamy.
I took her to the health visitor early yesterday morning to weigh her and mentioned the vomiting which they said was normal (even though it had increased recently). The most reassuring sign was that she was now 9lbs8oz - a just above average weight gain from her birth weight of 7lbs8oz but we don't know if she was more than that and lost some because we hadnt had her weighed since around 2 weeks.
After getting home from the health visitor yesterday morning, Lyra started screaming constantly and wouldn't feed. Nothing would calm her. She's had screamy hours before but this lasted 3 and a half hours. Eventually I decided to take her for a walk in the pram. This sent her to sleep so I walked around the park stopping occasionally to try to feed but every time she would scream again. Around 6pm I took her to the doctor who did an overall check and said he was satisfied she was healthy, labelling it as colic and stating we'd just have to ride it out.
Last night she slept almost all through the night (v unusual for her) which at the time we thought was great! But today she has continued to be asleep mostly, has been awake very little and is refusing to feed more than 5 or 10 minutes on the rare occasion she wakes - despite frantically cueing hunger and bobbing. When she does feed she vomits it up immediately. When she is awake she has not been as alert as normal and seems a little apathetic and sleepy.
Tonight she's been signalling hunger over and over but when we put her to the breast she screams and screams so we calm her, she gets sleepy and starts to fall asleep while signalling hunger so we put her to the breast again with the same result. We kept persisting with no improvement. I tried expressing a little and feeding by syringe with some Colief which we heard helps but this came up immediately and we could see it was everything she had taken in. She's now asleep again.
I just dont know if all of this is normal. We were initially worried she wasn't sleeping enough and was eating so much but now we have the opposite problem! Is it bad for a baby to sleep constantly and refuse the breast despite being starving? She doesn't seem dehydrated so we reckon she must be retaining at least a little fore-milk. She's had far fewer nappies than normal today though.
I don't want to take her to the doctor for the third time in her short life to be told to ride it out again and that everything is fine if she's hydrated as I don't want to come across as a paranoid parent. The trouble is being a first time Mum I can't help but worry something's wrong when she behaves completely out of character!
Please please help!
Thanks
Em
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.
Children's health
Uncharacteristic and extreme increase in sleeping and decrease in feeding
14 replies
emilygal · 26/04/2013 23:16
OP posts:
xigris ·
26/04/2013 23:56
I agree with the advice to take Lyra to A&E: she's a very young baby and she should be checked over. Far fewer wet / dirty nappies are potentially a sign of dehydration. There's nothing wrong in being anxious about your baby 
. It is far better to err on the side of caution. Please let us know how you get on!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.