A few newborn questions

Thanks Claudia - he seems to be doing ok though. If he wont settle I do feed him even if its not quiet 3 hours but for the most part he wakes like clock work every 3 hours in the day.

I dont beleive in waking a sleeping child We are weighing him on saturday and will take it from there!

Just a note - the three hour thing is a throw back from years ago and some babies do land up failing to thrive on timed feeds. If hes not complaining its probably fine, but 3 hours is a long time for a lot of babies. If I had done that with James I would have had a screaming baby who didnt gain weight. Books like babywise still preach this advice, but if you look online there have been a lot of moms that have followed this advice and lnded up failing at breatsfeeding or even worse, landed up with babies in hosiptal...

With Cloth nappies Laurakim you should ideally use bum cream very sparingly and try stay away from thick zinc or petrolium basis and always use a liner to prevent the cream from going into the nappy. Beeswax bases work best. This will only cause nappy rashes as it prevents the nappy from absorbing. You should be changing very regularly at this stage and so bum cream should really not be necessary. I don't remember any answers to any of the other questions you had.

Thanks guys. I am not worried about him but just wanted to get a rough idea of what the "norm" is

He actually sleeps well despite the beginnings of what appears to be colic

This morning he just wouldn't settle after his 2am feed and cried alot but has now settled down and is sleeping (fitfully but is sleeping)

Julz I did that with Cameron - fed him constantly but in Marina Petropulos's book she says that actually causes the colic to get worse

David's mom (who has been a paed nurse for 20 years) has said I need to feed him every 3 hours and he must feed properly. If he doesn't then he must wait for 3 hours again - we are sort of trying this now - even though he does seem to be feeding fine and isn't crying because he is hungry!

Hi Laura

I am going to try to remember. Here goes.

1 they can feed for quite a while initially. I remember Dylan taking up to an hour, but eventually he got the hang of it and would only take 10 minutes.

2 It is hard to say regarding sleep as all babies are different so I am going to tell you that worst case is that they sleep for two 10 minute naps per day. This is how long Dylan would sleep for. I hope Jack sleeps well.

3 They can poo 10 times a day or once every 15 days. As long as they have about 8 wet nappies a day then all is well.

4 initially you should feed them every 2-3 hours until their tummy is large enough to take bigger feeds. This can change if they have a growth spurt. If you have a colic baby who wont take a dummy you can just permanently feed them like I did.

5 I seriously did not use cream at every change. I really believe that this prevents the nappy absorbing the pee which actually causes a rash so I only ever used cream if he had a red bum which was NEVER. I think he got one minor rash from thrush after antibiotics.

6. I never needed to wake Dylan as he was awake anyway. I recon in the first couple weeks if baby is sleeping longer than 6 hours maybe wake for a feed but after that let them wake you.

If you are in doubt at all call your clinic sister.

Good luck. You are making me really broody today.

Laurakim, I also seem to recall that you are breastfeeding...
One of the things about breastfeeding is that we all preach feed on demand but then want averages... Truth is human milk is made for frequent consumption (unlike mammals which leave their young for prolonged periods to go forage for food). We are designed to carry our babies and allow them to feed frequently; I read a very interesting piece recently about reflux problems often being due to babies being "overfed" we try stretch out feeds so babies take in large quantities which their small stomachs struggle to retain.
Some babies can go 3 - 4 hours between feeds, and take about 40 minutes per feed (which shortens as they get older till a point you actually wonder whether they actually ate anything), other babies find sucking hard work. They suck for 5 minutes and fall asleep, waking up 30 minutes later for more food. As they get older they are able to take in more in shorted times, so they times between feeds becomes longer (a lot of moms interpret this as having too little milk)
An "average baby seems to tolerate about an hour and a half awake time, but your baby might not be average (just like some children are brighter at maths than others). I honestly think its better to learn to distinguish your own babies needs rather than stress about him not getting the right amount of sleep for the "average child" (especially since average just means that 50% of newborns sleep more often and 50% less often)

In the beginning poopy nappies are a MUCH better indication of food intake than wet nappies in breastfed babies. I dont have my womanly art of breastfeeding with me (its with a firend) so I cant recall exactly...will try get it back to post expected output amounts:)

Just a note. James has ALWAYS been a bad sleeper. As a newborn he would only sleep if with me, so I had a sling. He catnapped. He would go 2/3hourly between feeds in the first part of the day. Cluster fed at night between 5 and 10 (every hour) and then would go 4 hourly at night. Growth spurts I generally had a permanent leech.