Читать книгу Truly Happy Baby ... It Worked for Me: A practical parenting guide from a mum you can trust - Holly Willoughby, Holly Willoughby - Страница 19

Holding your baby face down across your forearm, with her head resting in the crook of your elbow, will put a slight pressure on her tummy and help to release trapped wind.

WEANING

Heat-sensitive spoons You can buy rubber spoons that are gentle on toothless gums and usefully change colour if the food is too hot!

When to wean …

A baby’s digestive system has to be mature enough to take solid food and they have to be sufficiently developed physically (i.e. be able to hold their head up), so the guidelines are to start at six months – everything the baby needs is in breast milk until that age. However, a health professional might recommend early weaning for numerous reasons. As Chester had reflux, I was advised to wean him at about five months. Also if you have a baby who’s permanently hungry and the milk just doesn’t seem to be cutting it any more, starting her on a few solids may help. A sure-fire sign she is ready is if she watches you when you’re eating, following the food’s journey from your plate to your mouth!

Ultimately, it’s up to you when to start weaning. It’s lovely to finally feed your baby proper food and see all that fresh fruit and vegetable goodness going into her. This is definitely one of those situations when you know best. If you think your baby isn’t satisfied by her milk intake alone, then try a little purée. But if you try it at or before six months and your baby rejects everything, perhaps it’s a bit too early. Leave it, and try again a week later. Sometimes if you wean babies around other, older children, it can help them to make sense of what those solids are all about.

Head of the table …

I can’t say enough about investing in a baby chair that pulls up to the table, rather than a standard highchair, so your child feels like part of the dinner party! Babies are like sponges and learn everything from their surroundings, so there’s no substitute for them sitting down to meals with their family to see what you should and shouldn’t do at the dinner table. Rather than you telling them not to tip their bowl all over their head, they’ll soon learn it’s not the done thing if they don’t see anyone else doing it. Children all fidget at the table but letting them move around with food is dangerous – they could fall and choke and it makes more mess too. Sitting them at the table early on is safer and might mean they develop lovely table manners!

What worked for me …

I kicked things off with all of my children by introducing a little baby rice into their diet. I’d come down for breakfast, make up their morning bottle, pour a bit into a bowl with a couple of teaspoons of baby rice, then try feeding it to them on a spoon, interspersed with their milk from the bottle. A bit from the spoon, then a bit from the bottle and so on, just to get them used to this new texture and way of eating. Then I’d do the same at lunchtime with a little whizzed-up vegetable purée. Carrots, sweet potatoes and courgettes are all gentle flavours to start with. I didn’t start them on any meat straight away, but did add fish to the vegetable purées as it’s kinder on the stomach.

This all worked really well for Harry and Belle. They took to it straight away, whereas Chester insisted on doing everything all by himself. He had no interest in taking anything from the spoon I was holding, so I had to give him an extra spoon, which seemed to appease him. Another thing I did differently very early on for Chester was to try a bit of baby-led weaning. This means that you don’t whizz everything up, but instead you steam a bit of carrot or broccoli and, once cooled, give it to your baby to hold, so that she’s in control of holding it and putting it into her mouth. With Chester, most of it would end up on the floor but enough went in that I didn’t worry and he still had milk to accompany every meal, so I wasn’t concerned about him going hungry.

How to whizz! …

If you’re making up little purées, invest in a hand blender so you can cook up a carrot or two at a time and then blend and feed. You don’t need one of those big all-singing, all-dancing blenders for the little portions they need at the puréeing stage. To save time and money, you may want to make up purées in batches to freeze. As they progress and grow older you can stop using the blender altogether and just mash food with a fork, then start cutting it into small bites. As you begin to introduce chunkier food, beware of choking hazards (see my warning).

I tried to introduce lots of foods as quickly as possible. Making three different meals for three different people just isn’t practical so my children, Chester in particular, have always had what we were all eating – just a whizzed-up or mashed version of it in the early stages.

Weaning warning …

If you are giving your baby sticks of vegetables to hold, such as carrots and broccoli, steam them slightly to soften them so they’re easier to bite into and digest, especially given a baby’s limited number of teeth! Cut fruits such as grapes and satsuma segments into very small pieces to reduce the risk of them getting stuck in your baby’s throat. I always peeled apples, too, as the skin can be tough to chew and a choking hazard. I was also told that a banana (before being mashed) is one of the most dangerous choking hazards as there’s nothing to grab hold of if you need to pull it out. It’s the fact that bananas are soft and break off that makes them so dangerous. As soon as your baby starts to crawl or even toddle around – you might have one who’s on her feet before twelve months – don’t let her move about whilst eating.

New foods and flavours …

Ultimately you want to give your baby a varied diet and get her used to a multitude of different flavours – so before she discovers chicken nuggets (they all do!), encourage her to eat a rainbow of colourful foods. I’d suggest trying one new food at a time to make sure your baby isn’t allergic to it, and introduce it with something you know she likes so she’s less likely to refuse it at the first offering.

There are some brilliant ready-made foods out there and I always had a stash in the cupboard for convenience. Steaming and puréeing isn’t always possible, so don’t feel guilty for using them, but they are expensive compared with making homemade batches, particularly if you buy organic, which I tried to.

If at first you don’t succeed! It can be frustrating to watch your baby grimace and spit out your lovingly made, delicious homemade purée, but her tastebuds are developing – what she dislikes one week might be a firm favourite the next! Portion out anything she doesn’t like, label it and pop it in the freezer to try another time.

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02

Milestones and routines In this section I’m going to outline the various milestones you can expect and give you the routines I used for all my babies (which you can use in conjunction with the timetables you’ll find in the Sleeping chapter – see here). Only use them as a guide for what to expect or aim for, however, and don’t get downhearted if your baby won’t play ball!

Some of my children took to a routine quicker than others. It’s all about having a goal and a reasonable expectation of what’s achievable. The word ‘routine’ might suggest an exact science but, as we all know, babies dance to their own tune, so be patient. As long as you troubleshoot the reasons why your baby might not be eating much or at decent intervals and try to adapt your feeding to rectify any problems, then she will get there in the end. They all do! Tomorrow is another day and a new opportunity for your baby to form good habits.

FEEDING MILESTONES: WHAT TO EXPECT

Very roughly (I cannot stress enough how all babies are different!), this is what you can expect over the coming months …

First few days and weeks In the early days you’ll be feeding constantly. Newborns have such little tummies that they need lots of small feeds to keep them topped up.

6 weeks–3 months During this period your little one will hopefully start having fuller feeds – hence a fuller tummy – and longer gaps between each one.

3–6 months By about three months you might start to notice your baby is really starting to respond to your gentle encouragement to get her into more of a pattern with feeding (and sleeping, as the two go hand in hand). If you only try to eke her out for an extra 5–10 minutes each feed, by the end of the day, and then the end of the week, you might find she is going a whole hour longer and eating more to boot.

6 months–1 year Once your baby reaches about six months, hopefully she’ll be in some sort of routine that suits you and your family. She might not be waking for any night feeds at all and, as a result, you’ll be getting the unbroken night’s sleep you’ve been dreaming of since the end-of-pregnancy insomnia began! It’s also during this time that you’ll probably start moving on to weaning. Get the blender ready!

ESTABLISHING A ROUTINE

First few days and weeks: feed, feed, feed …

I’m a big believer in feeding your baby as much as you like, as often as you like, in those first few days and weeks. You and your baby are just getting to know each other, and all that skin-to-skin contact you have whilst feeding, whether you choose to breastfeed or bottle-feed, is really nice for both of you. Breast milk, in particular, is easily digested, so it might seem in those first few days that your baby is never off the breast. But that’s all good. There’s plenty of time to get her into a routine. Some mums worry about snacking and that the baby is using them as a comforter or human dummy, but I say, SO WHAT! Some people seem to think that babies are born manipulative and that we need to teach them a lesson very early on to nip it in the bud, or these needy babies will go on to rule the home! Errr … when did we become so cynical? I think we are all so concerned with how our parenting will affect our children in the long term that we forget that the most simple thing they need from the start is love, and love will get all that yummy oxytocin flowing that helps with your milk production.

Sleepy feeder Some newborns can be very sleepy, so should they be woken for a feed? I’m a bit torn on this one, as it breaks my heart to ever wake a sleeping baby, but then the arguments for feeding regularly to establish your milk supply and ensure your baby doesn’t weaken are equally valid. I chose to let my babies sleep in those first couple of days and fed them when they woke up, but choose what you feel comfortable with and be guided by your midwife.

After the first day or two you’ll find your baby naturally starts to wake up more often for feeds as her digestion kicks into gear. After that time, if you find she keeps falling asleep at the breast or bottle, take her socks off and tickle her toes; don’t let her be too warm and snuggly. A gentle little blow of breath normally does the trick, and winding every 5–10 minutes during a feed will help too. If she is awake when she starts a feed, try to keep her awake until she finishes it or she’ll never get a full feed and sleep for those coveted longer periods.

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Night feeds: should you wake a sleeping baby? …

This is probably your next question and there are two schools of thought on this:

1. Yes, do it. Filling your baby’s tummy and sticking to the three-to-four-hour routine between feeds will make your baby go longer through the night, more quickly. Sometimes it’s referred to as the dream feed, which you give three to four hours after you’ve put your baby down for the night. So this would be at around 10 or 11pm for a 7pm bedtime. It’s called the dream feed because you keep all the lights off, and try to keep your baby as undisturbed as possible when you get her out of the cot. I have to say it’s not easy to keep babies asleep as they invariably wake up when you start winding them before putting them back down anyway.

2. No, let her sleep for as long as she needs to. This is the only way she’ll learn to stop being hungry in the night. When your baby is really little she’ll probably wake up naturally for that food as her small tummy will empty quickly, but as she gets older she can sleep for longer without needing to feed. There’s some research that says you go into a deep sleep after 90 minutes and will remain in that sleep pattern for the next four to six hours before you start to wake up naturally for morning. By that reckoning, if you start waking your baby up a few hours after you put her down, you risk disturbing her during her deepest sleep.

I tried both options. For me, the second option worked better – at least it did with Chester, as he learnt to sleep through from 7pm to 7am much quicker than my first two children.

I think you can only make this decision when you get to that point and know what works for you and your baby.

I always put Harry and Belle down at 7pm and did the dream feed at around 11pm. With Chester, though, because his reflux made sleeping difficult for him, I couldn’t bring myself to wake him up at 11pm when he was fast asleep.

On the move: breastfeeding in public …

Being able to breastfeed in public gives you so much freedom. It takes a while to perfect, but once you and your baby get used to it it’s the most hassle-free way to feed when you’re away from home. There may be onlookers who will make you feel like you should remove yourself to the nearest mother and baby room, but I say go for it. If anyone’s got an issue, it’s their issue! I always had one of those breastfeeding scarves that went around my neck and then over the baby – not because I thought I was going to offend anyone, but for me breastfeeding is very personal and I just thought it was nicer for the baby to feel all snug and warm. You can get clever versions now with a semi-rigid neckline so that the material isn’t across your baby’s face and you can make eye contact with her.

You might not feel comfortable breastfeeding in public at first, and that’s normal. It’s tricky to get that latch – your baby might come on and off a few times. Then you’ll get hot and bothered and think, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got my boob out and everyone’s looking at me!’ And then, to add insult to injury, the oxytocin level dips, the milk slows and your baby gets even more annoyed and it’s just a disaster. So go easy on yourself.

It’s a good idea to have a sterilised bottle and a carton of ready-made formula with you because then you know you’ve got back-up. I learnt this the hard way, but once I did I never left the house without them! When Chester was about nine weeks old I took him to a fancy restaurant with some new mummy girlfriends and their babies. I thought, ‘I can do this, I’m a third-time mum, I’ve breastfed two other children in public,’ and almost felt the challenge of this somewhat empowering. Chester, however, had other plans. He screamed and thrashed about from the second we started. I ended up scurrying to the toilets to feed him, which didn’t work either. I went back to the table completely mortified that I couldn’t feed my child. At this point one of my mummy friends pulled a carton of formula and a bottle out of her bag and said, ‘Do you want these?’ I was so relieved. I pounced on them and vowed never to be caught short again.

Don’t expect everything to fall into place straight away. Breastfeeding is an art!

Going back to work: can you still breastfeed? …

It is possible to breastfeed and go back to work. I’ve done it. I’ve been in dressing rooms pumping milk and putting it in the fridge until I get home, and many of my colleagues have done the same. My make-up artist filled the This Morning fridge with her breast milk carefully labelled up so as not to confuse it with someone else’s … and so it didn’t end up in Phillip’s tea!

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to keep up a good milk supply by expressing at regular intervals, or as best you can during your working day. If you’re unlucky, your supply might start to wane, and this does happen frequently. If you are one of the unlucky ones, don’t be too down on yourself. You’ve already done such an amazing job feeding your baby and given her a wonderful start in life. Once she sees your face come through that front door, she won’t be thinking about what form her next feed takes and I imagine you’ll feel the same (and probably start flooding the place before you’ve even said hello!).

Some of my mummy friends got into a routine of only breastfeeding the first feed of the day, and the last feed before bed. If you do this regularly enough your milk supply will respond, and even if nothing’s coming in all day it will be there when you get home. It’s all very clever!

ROUTINES: WHAT WORKED FOR ME

On the following pages are the routines I used for all of my babies, which I hope will be a good starting point for you and yours. A few things to bear in mind for all of them:

First, these feeding routines are all loosely based on your baby’s day beginning at 7am! If it’s 6am, everything will be an hour earlier – but if she wakes earlier than 6am, feed her and put her back to sleep, then start your day properly at 7am.

Second, the best way to tell whether your breastfed or formula-fed baby is getting enough milk is to monitor her weight, which you will do alongside the health visitor and by taking your baby to the health clinic for regular checks (see here). You’ll be told how often you need to go, but if your baby is gaining weight well you may only need to go once a month. With Harry and Belle, I used to really look forward to going to see how all our hard work was paying off. There’s nothing lovelier than getting a pat on the back from the clinic as they tell you how perfectly your baby is progressing. And whilst it was a different story with Chester, it was equally useful to get the reassurance and advice we both needed.

Third, there are days, even whole weeks, when your perfect baby will completely drop her routine. This is particularly common when a baby is poorly. Believe me, as soon as your baby gets the slightest snuffle, everything goes out of the window. Or she might be going through a growth spurt and suddenly need more food than normal. You need to try to work out what the reasons are and respond accordingly with either more or less food and cuddles. Just don’t despair. You’ll get your golden routine back in a few days, when her appetite comes back and she’s not too bunged up to sleep!

Finally, I think it’s a really good idea to keep a feeding and pooing diary. Sounds delightful! But seriously, for the first few weeks, day and night all roll into one so it’s worth keeping a note of things – or you can now even get apps that help you keep a record of everything. Let alone what breast your baby last fed off or how much of her bottle she took, you’re unlikely to remember when she last did a poo or had a wet nappy and how long she slept. Keep a record for YOU too. For example, if you’re on painkillers after a Caesarean, keep a little table of when you last took tablets and when your next ones are due. You’ll be amazed how four hours can slip by – you could swear you only fed two hours ago! Without keeping a record I would have been in real trouble. Baby brain and all that! Make life easier for yourself. Don’t attempt to keep these sorts of things in your head!

Helpful hints At this very early age, don’t put pressure on yourself to stick to these times. Your baby is so young and there’s plenty of time to get her into a routine. Something to bear in mind is that babies who are solely breastfed might need to feed more often than formula-fed babies, who often sleep longer between feeds. But, in general, your little one will need her little tummy fed every three to four hours.

Hungry cry Hungry cries are often accompanied by a baby clenching her fists and bringing them towards her face. A good way to tell when your baby has had enough to eat is when her hands relax and fall wide open.

Helpful hints As the weeks go by, you’re looking for your baby to go longer and longer between feeds. The first step is to try to get her to have a full feed where she empties the bottle or breast every time, so that she can last longer before she is hungry again. Then when she does feed again, she’ll be hungry enough to complete the next feed so that she doesn’t need to snack in between, and so on. The idea is that if your baby has had enough complete, regular feeds during the daytime, she’ll get to a point where she doesn’t need to wake for a feed during the night.

At this stage, your baby is still so young so, again, don’t put pressure on falling into a routine. Sometimes it’s tough to make your baby go longer between feeds, and the best piece of advice I can give you is that you should ask yourself a few questions, just to be sure you haven’t missed anything before you feed your baby earlier than necessary. Is your baby really crying because she’s hungry? Does she need a nappy change or just a cuddle? Did she have enough to eat at her last feed or is she hungry now because she fell asleep after a few minutes and you didn’t wake her to finish the bottle? After the first six weeks or so, if you continue to feed your baby every time she starts to cry you’ll find she only ever takes small amounts as it’s more of a snack than a full feed.

Helpful hints Since your baby arrived, you’ve probably been feeding her on demand, perhaps expressing some feeds or giving her formula. However you’ve decided to feed your baby, try to get to a point where you’re leaving three to four hours between feeds. This is the way you teach your baby to fill up enough at a feed, to sleep longer between feeds and ultimately be able to sleep for long stretches through the night without needing to wake for a top-up. By the time all of mine were three months old, whether breastfed or bottle-fed, they were on a four-hourly feeding schedule, but that’s just what worked for me. You’ll end up forming your own schedules to suit your life. And don’t be downhearted if it takes you and your baby longer to get to grips with a routine – everyone is different and that’s how it should be!

Think of the four-hourly routine as a helpful framework for you to work with – if nothing else, it will give you a rough idea of when you last fed without having to keep writing it all down. It may not always work – some weeks your baby may be hungrier than others and, if you’re breastfeeding, may want to cluster feed through the night. Cluster feeding is when your baby wakes for lots of feeds much closer together than usual. Young babies do this a lot, and no one really knows why. It could be your baby’s way of encouraging you to produce more milk so that there’s more to fill her up. This can be exhausting for you, and you’ll often feel like it’s never going to end and you’re destined to be this feeding machine for the rest of time! Just know that it won’t last forever and the good news is that it will lead to you producing oodles of milk to satisfy your baby – think how much sleep you’ll both get then!

Always be guided by your baby. If you have a baby who wakes at 6am every morning, start your 24-hour clock from then. I just found that the 7am routine really worked for me. Your body gets used to a routine very quickly and you’ll be shocked how you check to see what time it is and discover it’s 11am or 3pm on the dot and feed time. Your body instinctively gave you a little prod. You probably won’t even need to look at the clock!

By having a set timetable you know when the next feed is – you remember the four golden numbers 7, 11, 3 and 7!

One of the best things about getting my babies in a four-hourly feeding routine – in my case 7am/11am/3pm and 7pm – was it finally meant I stopped having to ask myself or Dan when I last fed the baby! Baby brain is definitely not a myth – whether it’s down to all the hormones or just lack of sleep, you can have finished a feed an hour ago, and then forget immediately what time you began the last feed and completely lose track of time.

Be adaptable The four-hour feeding routine is all about trying to find that key balance between being too flexible and not flexible enough! Being too flexible with your baby might mean you struggle to set a feeding and sleeping routine further down the line, but not being flexible enough is likely to stress you out. It’s about bearing the guidelines in mind, but adapting them to suit you and your baby.

Helpful hints This routine will seem like a dream before you get there. An unbroken night’s sleep! Perfect! Exactly your goal. Having said that, if your baby is a bit more stubborn, don’t give up. She’ll get there eventually and so will you. If your baby is still waking at night, don’t be discouraged. Just ask yourself those troubleshooting questions I gave you in the Pre-routine Hints to check you’re doing all the right things during the day to prepare your baby for a good night’s sleep. Weaning (see here) can help with that as solids don’t get digested as quickly as liquids, keeping your baby’s tummy from rumbling for longer. Whatever your situation, perhaps this little piece of information might make you feel better – or more determined to get your baby into a routine. My mum will tell anyone who will listen how I didn’t sleep through the night until I was four and a half years old. Imagine that! Rather not? No, me neither! On the plus side, I can sleep for England now … or at least I could until I had babies!

Getting babies off bottles …

By the time your baby gets to about six months old she will naturally want to start copying you, even down to the way you drink. If she reaches for your water cup, let her try to take a sip. Your baby will want to move on as much as you want her to, so be guided by her newfound interest. Give her a beaker or sippy cup with a hard spout and lid at mealtimes so she can help herself and get used to drinking out of something other than a bottle.

When your baby is getting old enough for solid food it’s time to start dropping bottles. So to give you some idea, here’s what I did with Chester, from about six months:

Then I gradually dropped the 11am feed, so he was just having three bottles in 24 hours. At eleven months I dropped the 3pm feed, so he was on two bottles at 7am and 7pm. At twelve months I dropped the 7am bottle and he just had a sippy cup with milk at breakfast, but be guided by what you think your baby needs all the way along. I left in that 7pm bedtime bottle for a while, as that’s such a snuggly and cosy time and I really think it helped to settle him.

03

Feeding solutions Hopefully your experience of feeding your new baby will go without a hitch, but there are a few things that can get in the way, particularly if you are breastfeeding. You might also learn that your baby has a medical reason for finding feeding tricky, such as tongue-tie or reflux, which I know all about having gone through them with Chester! These arise mostly in younger babies, and you’re likely to need medical help to overcome them. In this section you’ll find some of the most common issues you might face and some possible solutions to help you get on track. Never hesitate to seek the help of your GP or health visitor should you need to.

BREASTFEEDING ISSUES

Sore nipples: miracle-cure ingredient – lanolin! If your nipples are sore and raw, slather on a good lanolin cream. Tons of it! I put it on after every feed and it’s honestly the only thing that helped. There is so much conflicting advice on how to treat sore nipples: everything from let them air dry, hang ’em in the wind, to putting cabbage leaves in your bra. Try these if you want to, but I always thought of chafed nipples like chapped lips and you wouldn’t leave those to heal themselves in the air. Your nipples need moisturising – they need loads of lanolin cream, followed by a breast pad and bra. Another great thing is that you don’t need to wash it off as it’s safe for your baby. So get slathering! Sore nipples can sometimes lead to or be a symptom of other infections that may need medical treatment, though.

Infected nipples: see your GP For any infection, contact your GP. If your nipples are cracked, pink, shiny and itchy, and/or you find white spots/coating on your baby’s tongue or she has an ongoing nappy rash, you might have thrush. White nipple is caused by bad blood circulation around the nipple, making it appear white, and it can be agony when your baby feeds.

Pain: try nipple shields These thin, flexible covers made of silicone act like a second skin to help reduce discomfort, and they do work. I was desperate to feed Chester but it was agony because my nipples were in such a state. Wearing a shield reduced the pain enough to get me through.