If you have a new baby who’s not feeding well after a caesarean delivery, try not to give up on breast feeding without getting support from your midwife or lactation support advisor. Your baby may be very drowsy as the drugs begin to wear off and be difficult to keep awake. Try giving small feeds every 2 hours. Giving formula milk may look like a good solution but often causes more problems further down the line.
If you choose to breast feed and your baby is not feeding well, wake your baby up and offer milk more regularly, do not let your baby go more than 4 hours otherwise your baby girl or baby boy may be too tired to eat and then health professionals will recommend that you use formula to boost your baby.
Breast milk is best as it is perfect nutrition for a new born baby, however not all mums can feed their baby for a variety of reasons. Some babies will adapt to either taking breast or bottle or both but if you do this before your milk supply is fully established it can reduce the milk supply and you may end up giving up sooner than you had planned.
Bottles take a bit more preparation but do mean mum can catch up on some much needed rest but the downside is your baby may have a milk allergy or intolerance which is not always easy to detect and cause many sleepless nights for parents. Usual symptoms are milk coming back up, severe bouts of crying, baby refusing his bottle or turning his head away when you know he or she is hungry.
If you suspect this may be the case you can buy Colief drops which is a natural remedy to help break down the milk proteins, when a baby’s body is not producing its own lactase, best to check with your doctor first. This situation usually rights itself in time and can be a gentler cure rather than using stronger drugs to help reduce the stomach pain.
Next time we will look at infant Reflux, another condition young infants can have that may explain frequent crying bouts. When your baby is crying alot it is difficult to know what is the underlying cause, if only babies could spseak!