These are not easy days. I used up all my emotional energy getting to the end of being pregnant. In my head I foresaw two outcomes: scbu followed by death and healthy baby who came home and did well. It didn’t occur to me I might find myself coping with staring endlessly at a sleepy baby who isn’t quite thriving and rarely wakes, is jaundiced and lethargic but, in most senses, well enough. I’m struggling. I’ve tried most things but Ben is not quite gaining weight, though not quite in a bad way either. His jaundice comes and goes. His feeding comes and goes. We’ve done syringes, we’ve done ebm in a bottle, we’ve tried different positions and approaches. Somedays are fine, some a little bit harder. Every time I think we’ve turned a corner, it turns out to just be a twist in a maze. Nagging at me is this awful fear that he’s sleepy because he shares some problem with Freddie we just don’t know about yet. He twitches at times, little movements that were occasionally pointed out to me in Freddie as possible fits. When it was Freddie, I didn’t agree, I said that I had seen all my girls do them. Now, in Ben, they make me frightened.
Over the weekend I was feeling very positive; he was pink and feeding well and I really thought I was doing better for him. Then on Monday the health visitor came and he’d only put on a couple of ounces from the lowest he was weighed at and was more yellow and she blew all my confidence out of the water. She lacked tact, to put it mildly, but mostly I’m just fragile and struggling to believe I’m doing well. It’s hard to know other babies, including mine, have put on a pound a week, and my little boy is failing to thrive. This hasn’t happened since Fran, who did at least have a recognisable reason for being hard to feed. With Ben, I’m fretting that whatever caused his early jaundice is actually a problem and we are going to get our hearts broken again.
I have so little reserves for worry. I’m struggling to stay on top of it. Sitting looking at a baby who sleeps for 22 hours out of 24 just feels too much like scbu for me. It’s hard not to second guess every last thing.
I’m taking pictures of awake and alert. When he is awake all my fears go away because he is so alert and bright. I just need him to do it more. But photos help at least. I hate that I’m wishing this bit away – its dangerous – but I need to be a week or two on with a hungry, demanding boy who takes up all my energy in a different way. I hate that I’m transmitting my fears to everyone else along with me. It’s exhausting and we need to not be exhausted any more.
Bless your heart. You’re doing fantastically in my view. Little consolation but my eldest (now an irrepressible seven year old) was nearly three weeks early and sounds v similar to Ben. Jaundice, unenthusiastic feeder and ‘failed to thrive’ – what a ridiculous label that is. Just keep looking at him xx
He is gorgeous! Overly sleepy babies are always distressing, and must be all the more in your situation. Hope he stays alert more and more by the day!
I’m certain you’ve plenty of people telling you what to do & what not to do, but I’m just going to throw in my thoughts in case they’re of use. Have you tried spending a day or two doing lots and lots of skin to skin contact – snuggle up naked in bed with him, take lots of baths together if your bathroom can be made warm enough (mine can’t be made warm enough for *me* to want to hang around in there naked, let along a newborn lol). It just might be the encouragement he needs for that feeding/waking instinct to kick in?
Also – my first and third babies were both jaundiced. Emily’s was gone within a week or so, but Edward was still noticeably yellow at around four months – it took a long time for that sleepy yellow newborn to get the hang of things, but he did. He terrified me, because he came after my most difficult baby (traumatic labour for us both, spell in hospital with an unidentified scary infection), and I looked at everything as a sign of something awful.
Not sure that any of that is any use, but maybe there’s something there to help.
Forgot to say – Ben’s eyes – just amazing, so beautiful and knowing, an ‘old soul’ x
Oh Sweetheart, this takes me back so much to how it was with Ernest in those early days, the jaundice, the weight, the sleepiness, and how we were so unprepared for it. How terrified I was.
He is gaining though right? So it is coming good, it’s just slow. Our 37 weekers were not ready to come out, but we had no choice.
Sending loads of love. x
Merry I so know how you are feeling. I had this with all but one of mine and some more extreme than others. At 6wks Elijah was still nearly a pound under his birth weight and admitted to hospital for failure to thrive. It was a vicious circle of jaundice making him sleepy which caused him to feed poorly which meant he wasn’t getting the fluids to flush the jaundice out. They assumed he was milk intolerant and prescribed soya milk. In retrospect I realise he wasn’t intolerant he was just a useless feeder, he could barely suck from a bottle and basically his breastfeeding latch was appalling. Unfortunately despite calling for breastfeeding support I didn’t get any where we lived.
When Saoirse was born we had similar issues with feeding and I did resort to top up EBM from bottles until she started solids. I also had the most fantastic breastfeeding support from a friend who sat with me for hours trying to get Saoirse to latch properly. I used breast compressions at nearly every feed. She was never great at breastfeeding and only really started looking like she was thriving when she started solids.
With Kean, I again had more fantastic support from another friend. I managed to not resort to top up feeds and just fed fed fed him. If he stirred I fed him, if he was awake I fed him, even when he was dozy I had him at the breast and would drip milk into his mouth. Again he had a poor latch and struggled to milk the breast. I frequently used breast compressions. He was such a skinny baby too, and again like Saoirse he only started looking healthy when he started solids!
What I guess I’m trying to say is please get help. See a breastfeeding counsellor in person. Get them to really examine his latch. Don’t let it get to the stage I got to with Elijah. I realise now that some of my children had upper lip ties which caused much of their problems, but is little known about:
http://thefunnyshapedwoman.blogspot.com/2011/03/introducing-maxillary-labial-frenulum.html
I’m always here if you need anything. ((((HUGS)))))
Merry you live i think near a couple of truly fantastic breastfeeding counselors. If you email me or fb message me i can put you in touch. Lots of hugs.
Both of mine were bright orange from within 24 hours, both C-sections. It took weeks to clear as I remember. We got close to needing UV for 2nd one. They also look more orange indoors and on photos. I got to the point were I could not tell if they were less orange or more, to close to the situation, others told me it was getting less.
Bless him, what a sweet baby.
Awww, you are doing so well, you really are! Seb was 37 weeks and the jaundice, the lack of weight gain, the sleepiness – oh I remember it well. But as Jeanette said, Ben HAS gained weight! He is alert and awake at times. He is doing ok.
The twitching, well nothing will reassure you, but Lucas does it. He has since birth.
That health visitor is clearly not a good match, can you speak to another health professional?
Wanted to add I agree with Karen. I spent the first month after having Lucas, basically in bed, topless and feeding. Forget normal, forget anything I thought it should be like. I would be ready the minute he woke, yawned, turned, stirred I did nothing else. And nothing worked the same way twice. I would fret constantly, count wet/dirty nappies, I only got 1 awake photo in 6 weeks. It took a lot to accept it. In the end, I hired a cleaner, got a friend to come in as a ‘mothers help’ and got breastfeeding advice. (((((hugs))))
My DD was very slow to gain weight. She was jaundiced and I had to set an alarm to wake me us through the night so she could be fed. She was going 6 hours in the day without a feed so we realised we had to wake her.
She was 6lb 8oz at birth and by 6 months was only 10lb 5oz. I was convinced she was fine but I was constantly pressurised to give her formula. I was sure she was fine. She is three now and still quite petite. She has never had a great appetite. I started BLW at 6mths but she was a year old before she took much interest in food.
Ben is gorgeous, congratulations.
Hoping things turn around for you all soon. I didn’t have this problem with Angus, he just screamed 22 hours out of 24. It seems they all challenge us one way or another, which in turn just makes us stress, worry and second guess everything. Why can’t it all just be smooth sailing? I suppose that would be boring though!
He is so adorable, Merry. And no matter what, you’re doing a great job.
xo
Josh was just the same. Nothing I did – even when I gave in and switched to bottle milk – worked. Of course now I know he was tongue tied which (for him) was one of the main issues behind his feeding. At the time, I had no idea. He never gained “proper” weight until 3 months old when in desperation I weaned him on to solid food. He thrived instantly.
((hugs)) So frustrating to be Mum and feel that some how you should know the answer.
He is so beautiful, and such eyes – looking forward to more photos 🙂
I am incredibly grateful for all this advice. I know the sensible thing is to call for help, but I’m quite a shy person in some ways and I’m not ready to start crying in front of a new person. It’s almost easier to keep going back to the hospital. I really appreciate your stories, it has helped push this back into the realms of normal.
I will though, if I’m not sorted and on top of it by the weekend.
Of course, having blogged and fretted, he’s had his most alert evening and best feeds for several days 🙂
Go Ben – really pleased to hear about his alert evening. Hope it continues for you. He is such a beautiful baby 🙂
HI Merry. Ben looks adorable! I want to encourage you about the jaundice. Jake was full-term, but only weighed 6lb, 6oz. He was born at home, so no medics ever set eyes on him, but I knew he was VERY yellow. Thankfully he wasn’t a very sleepy baby (none of mine were), but he wasn’t a great feeder to begin with either ~ very little and VERY often as I remember! He gained weight quite slowly (certainly not double at 6 months) and was still yellow at his 6 week check ~ I remember the doctor commenting that it wasn’t quite all gone! Perhaps I was fortunate that he was a spring baby, but I used to keep him stripped to a vest and sleep him either on me, or stretched out in a carry-cot (no covers or blankets), in front of the window ALL DAY, EVERY day ~ or I’d take him out in his pushchair (not a pram with a hood). Constantly exposing him to as much sunlight as I could brought it down naturally ~ eventually!
Like I say, I’ve never had sleepy babies (maybe because they’ve mostly been late) but MOST newborns are sleepy for a couple of weeks. As a photographer, I know that if I want to shoot a sleepy newborn I have about a 14 day window and after that they will be too awake to let me play with them so much! I guess, if a baby is born pre-40weeks you have to allow for the extra weeks of sleepiness ~ so in Ben’s case I would be expecting him to ‘wake up’ a bit more around about the 4/5 week mark!
With regards to the ‘Failure to Thrive’ ~ go by your instincts (which you know are good). When I had Ellie ~ 9lb 10oz @ 43weeks ~ SHE was the one that got admitted to hospital for failure to thrive!! She fed OK, but was never wonderfully keen. She lost quite a bit of weight after birth, and then struggled to regain ~ and then plateaued just around her birth weight, for about 8 weeks! I wasn’t at all worried actually, but the HV didn’t like it one bit & wouldn’t go away (sigh)! Then at 4 months Els got a nasty chest infection that had us up to A&E for an x-ray, which they never actually did, but the SHO admitted her for FTT as soon as he saw her growth chart. I sat in hospital for almost a week, being harassed about supplementing & declining graciously, only to be discharged when the consultant EVENTUALLY came around and declared her as ‘catch down’ ~ i.e. she was finding her right spot and was simply born-too-big for herself ~ which is what I had said all along! She was never a keen eater, even on solids and even now, at 8, is a pretty tiny eater, but she has certainly not ‘failed to THRIVE’. I knew she was alert enough and not ‘floppy’ at all, so I was never worried.
Ben, like you say, looks like he is very alert, bright and active when he is awake, so I would be very doubtful if he is really failing to thrive. He IS gaining, and he doesn’t look very yellow to me (certainly not dangerously so).
Merry ~ you are doing FANTASTICALLY ~ keep your confidence up. Try to brush off those not-so-helpful remarks that HVs are rather inclined to offer all too freely (I never even see mine these days, I just kindly decline the visits & the check-ups) & go with what you know. I understand your heart is all mixed up with joy and fear for Ben, but all the same ~ you have done this mothering thing before ~ and very well too ~ meeting challenges with your children’s need that some of the rest of us might have been flattened by ~ don’t let some irritating HV knock you flat ~ you’re tougher than that (even if you don’t feel very much like you are atm)!! 😀
PS ~ I hope I’ve only said helpful stuff here ~ if not then hit delete! I don’t want you to keep a record of ANYTHING that is unhelpful to you right now! 😀
Much Love to you and your beautiful family.
Cx
Many {{hugs}} Merry! I do want to second the advice to go skin to skin as much as possible, complete kangaroo care. And perhaps see if there is a tongue tie issue?
You are doing really well, you are! Mothering a new baby is hard work! {{hugs}}
Just wanted to say that my son is now 16 months old. He has been below the charts since he was about a 2 months old. He was weighed today and was 19.5lbs. This is even below the charts for breastfed babies. He is HEALTHY, he walks/runs, climbs on anything he can get his little legs up on, is starting to talk. He has problem solving skills that amaze me. He went several months without very minimal weight gain. Unfortunately, I didn’t supplement as early as I should have, and when I finally sort of wanted to, he just wouldn’t take anything besides the breast. I wanted to supplement with stroed EMB in a supplemental nursing system, and I even got so far that I considered formula, but if it didn’t come straight from my body he didn’t want it. We had some wicked fights over bottles, and he flat out refused to nurse with the SNS.
And my daughter, who is three now, was formula fed. She used to be so asleep sometimes during the day that I would have to basically give her a cold bath to wake her up to eat.
Some babies are just tiny. Some babies are just sleepy. And most are kind of twitchy in the beginning, I think.
I think it is understandable that you are worried. Even moms who haven’t gone through a quarter of what you have gone through worry about and second guess everything. And while I could sort of shrug away some of the slow weight gain stuff, I would also be super worried about all that sleeping. And then grumble when things swung to the crying demanding side. But that is just how I am.
Anyway, I am wishing on you some good old lusty screaming and demanding babyness.
I never asked my sister about the evidence, but she has 2 boys (teenagers now)- first had a tongue tie, second cleft lips and palate. She found some research paper that suggested to her that it could be familial and a linked (and more likely with boys)- so I’ve always had a bit of a panic about CLP and TT with my kids- I think she mentioned it when I got pregnant with K, who’s 6 now- its not new research I mean, and if there was something to back it up, you’d probably know more about it than me. Just wondering (on that NOT definate evidence!) if it might be more likely for Ben to have a TT?
In any case, I couldn’t trust any breastfeeding support without friend/family reference (NHS or otherwise) but I hope you can get someone to reassure you that bit is going as well as possible in your situation.
Huge hugs (and ditto remove this if its not helpful, I like the idea of ONLY positives around you, esp if HV upset you!)
vikki*
Sounds like a lot of people have experienced early, sleepy, jaundiced babies and it sounds fairly “normal”!! Glad he had a brighter evening as well as you getting reassuring advice.
From someone who babies were all late (I don’t actually go into labour LOL!) – Sofia was an elective section at 41.5 weeks, weighed 8lb6oz – she’d been a pretty quiet baby in pregnancy (if she wasn’t a) my fourth and b) regular in her timing, her lack of movements would have scared me witless) and that continued at birth – she literally slept for the first 6 weeks – other than just being awake enough to feed, I reckon she woke for 15 mins in an evening (same time as her pregnancy wriggle) and that was about IT! Then, at 6 weeks, someone flipped a switch!
I’m sure things’ll slowly get easier, but keep blogging – partly, it is a way of venting your concerns, and partly, it seems to have given Ben a hint 😉
Ah Merry, I suppose my crappy fb post yesterday didn’t help either. Sorry. Ben is beautiful, and gorgeous and lovely. You are a great mother. I know nothing about breatfeeding I’m afraid, so I don’t have anything useful to say, but I hope things turn a corner swiftly xxx
Merry, I hope the feeding is going well now, but if you are still struggling I just wanted to reassure you, as others have done, that it all sounds quite normal. I have been through all kinds of feeding problems, which I know I’ve often referred to – one day I’ll tell you the whole saga if you are interested!! Anyway all my boys have lost more than 10% of their birthweight and struggled to regain it, and also had jaundice as well. When I had my 4th baby, I know that if I wasn’t an experienced mum, and a breastfeeding counsellor (with friends in the same role) I would have found it very hard to continue feeding exclusively to 6 months. But I did it, and he has never had any formula, did baby led weaning like a dream and is still feeding now at 22 months and counting. There were various scary moments which now blur into one, though the one that sticks in my mind was that he didn’t gain any weight between 4 and 5 months. The HV suggested early weaning, but I spoke to the hospital infant feeding advisor (just beacuse I know her well) and she said don’t do it, he’s fine, if he’s alert and happy then trust your instincts. So I didn’t wean until 6 months, and he was and is fine. He’s now a very chunky little toddler with an amazing appetite!
The other reason I wanted to comment was to agree with those suggesting you should see a breastfeeding counsellor, and even more than one person until you find someone helpful. I completely understand feeling shy and also not wanting to tell your story over again to lots of people, but I have to say that those two reasons are probably why I gave up breastfeeding my first baby after 6 weeks and I will regret that for the rest of my life. I wish I lived nearer, I would love to come and sit with you for as long as it takes, but I’m sure there are people near you who are able to help. I hope you manage to find someone if that’s what you decide, although waiting till the end of the week to see how it is going by then sounds reasonable. Lots of skin to skin in the meantime!!
Take care, lots of love xx
One of the things my lac. consultant had me do with C1 (he was preemie) was to rent a hospital grade baby scale. We put him on it at the start of every feed and recorded his weight- then we put him on after each feed to see exactly how much he nursed.. right down to the ounce. It REALLY helped as it took all of the guesswork out of nursing a tiny little one. Hope this helps.. just wanted to pass it along as an idea! He is beautiful mamma!
Dear Merry – there is lots of super advice here, and you probably know it all anyway as an experienced mum of 6!! If he’s gaining weight (even a little) then clearly something is working, somewhere, somehow.
It’s definitely worth getting some more BF support – I found the BF line really helpful shifting some mastitis and latching DD onto my right boob (left was fine, but right was a nightmare) – and it has the advantage of being pretty anonymous. She talked me through the laid back feeding position – and then saw me at the local BF clinic a few days later. These two things (BF line + clinic) helped DD’s latch improve and problems with cracked nipples, mastitis etc got better. Good luck with it all – he’s so sweet – I hope you both crack it soon!
RE the sleeping, My twin boys were prem and didn’t really start to wake up much until they were older than their due date. They slept the clock around and it was quite a shock when they went from that to 2 hourly feeds lol. Now, ages 13, one has never slept much since 🙂 ((hugs) You ARE doing well.
Sod the HV – they rarely give good advice and everyone knows they’re just the long arm of social services to make sure you’re not killing your baby. You can see just by LOOKING at him how pinker he is. And let’s face it, he was early – he’s still on tummy time. It’s hard not to worry but easy to lose perspective too. But looking at him he looks very alert and happy… you’re doing a great job! xx
HURRAH @ Debbie Qalballah.
So pleased things are getting better Merry. I totally understand the shy thing, it was incredibly hard for me to ask for help, I didn’t ask it was offered which was lucky. If nothing else, just look into tongue tie or upper lip tie and check Benedict out, for peace of mind at least.
ps. Benedict looks so scrummy, give him a massive cuddle from me!
Dear Merry, I have no advice for you. As Knitlass said above, you are a really experienced Mum and I don’t know any magic answers. Your post here rang very true for me too. I have found the everyday aspects of parental risk soooooo hard this time around. Constantly second guessing every variance in how our little Jonah has presented. Imagining the worst case scenarios from everything I observed about him. You are right; it is draining, and like you I struggled not to ‘infect’ the rest of my family with my fears. I lost faith in my own judgement too. Because I got so fed up with myself jumping at every shadow, I didn’t jump at the shadows i should have been jumping at, if you know what I mean! Along the way I have learnt that a) everyone else’s opinion can get stuffed, b) Salome’s death put me in an extraordinary position with parenting Jonah and I was allowed to do extraordinary things to manage that, and c) it is perfectly valid to take one of my children to the GP even if the primary aim is to reduce my anxiety, and my GP supports me in this (actually I have found once I gave myself permission to take any of our children to the GPs at any time, I didn’t need to do it very often at all).
What a beautiful boy Benedict is. I hope the week ahead is better for you than the week you have just had.