I’m sitting in my den watching Charlotte sleep peacefully in her Fisher Price papasan chair. For you fellow yogis--she’s in a beautiful reclined Baddha Konasana, looking incredibly peaceful. This is terribly frustrating actually because instead of sleeping, she should be eating. She hasn’t eaten since 6:00 a.m.
We’re having a hard time figuring out how to get her to eat regularly so that we can use the NG tube to complement what she eats herself, rather than using the NG tube to feed a sleeping baby. The nutritionist at Children’s tells us that she needs to get 560 ml of food daily. But, in order to get her off the tube, we’re only supposed to feed her when she tells us she’s hungry. Since she only asks for food about 7 times a day, she’d need about 80 ml per feed. If she eats some and we NG the rest (she’s never eaten 80 ml), she seems to “urp” up the portion she didn’t ask for. We’ve had to readjust her Reglan (the medication that keeps her food moving in the correct direction) back to its original schedule to prevent “urp” episodes, so I’m back to medicating her 7 times a day.
Since I’m having a hard time getting the pediatrician on the phone this morning, and the nutritionist only cares about the quantity of calories taken in, I’d like to take a poll of you, Team Charlotte. If you have a chance, can you click on the Comment link at the end of this post and answer a few questions for us?
--On average, how frequently did your 12 week old ask for food (every 2/3/4 hours)? Please tell us if your baby was bottle or breastfed, as we’ve heard there is a difference in terms of feeding frequency.
--On average, how much did baby eat at a feeding (2/3/4 ounces)?
--Did baby eat or sleep between feeds consistently, or did baby sometimes eat every two hours and then the next day eat only every 5 hours?
--If you had a baby who had to transition off of an NG tube, or know anyone who has, can you offer any advice?
Thanks!!
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3 comments:
Hi guys:
My two both nursed about every two hours, although at 3 months, Ava could frequently go for up to 4 hours. Ava was a much sleepier baby than Mhari the first 3 months--I used to be worried that she'd gone "too long" between meals. Since they were breastfed, I can't give quantities. Ava definitely did vary from day to day in terms of her nursing frequency, and sometimes used it more for comfort to drop off to sleep or just to relax, not necessarily because she was all that hungry. Both our girls were really fussy for 4 hours (like clockwork) every night right up until exactly 13 weeks. Wow, just remembering it makes me tired.
HI Ilene--
I found my two both went through growth spurts at certain intervals and would go WAY off their schedule...leading me to wonder had there been a schedule at all or had I imagined it???
I have been catching up on my Charloitte BLOG and it does seem that some of the timing does coincide with when growth spurts would be happening...they do throw them off schedule.
My guys were both breast and at each feeding would eat an estimated 4 oz. and it was around every 3 hours...but then the spurt would come and there would be waking in the middle of the night and all kinds of other stuff..including eating until you urp.
Regarding gas...both of mine baceme gassy at about 6 weeks and it lasted until about 16...not fun...we were big users of mylicon.
Hey Newbies,
Grace ate every 4 hours-ish at 12 weeks, except at night when we could go about 6. She developed her reflux (Xantac Baby!) at this time. Stayed on her meds until around 9 mos (solids). Mollie was also a 3-4 hour feed during the day and would give me around 8-10 hours at night at 12 weeks. No reflux but she was constipated from the get go - Prune Juice Baby! Both ate around 6 oz per feeding at this point -- Mollie probably more. And Ellie was breastfed and I have no recollection -- I guess every 4-6 hours as well.
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