Dumb questions about breastfeeding

Ok, you all love the dumb questions so here I go....

1) What does DREAM FEED mean? Is it simply the night time feeds or do you feed them when they are still sleeping???

2) When expressing do you do so before a feed or after. I am thinking in terms of getting both foremilk and hindmilk expressed.

3) How do you tell if bubs has wind or colic or reflux? Or are they just overfed.

Can you tell I had "one of those nights"

1) A dream feed is when you pick them up and feed them when they are still asleep, usually when you go to bed in hope that they will sleep a bit longer.

2)Always express after a feed, first thing in the morning is when you will have the most milk. I don't think it really matters if you don't get any formilk but i could be wrong. If you are wanting to give Thomas a bottle at night then you want mainly hindmilk so it fills him up better.

3)Colic is when they cry every day at the same time for no reason at all and then stop crying as quickly as they start. If something you do stops the crying then its not colic. The crying has to go on for more than 20 mins for it to be colic as well. They generally arch their back.

For us reflux showed somewhere between 4-6 weeks I think and it showed by Jacks sleeps just getting worse and worse and really fussing on the breast. He would only sleep propped up in his bouncer and loved a dummy.
Your milk might also be coming out too fast for him which can upset their wee tummies and used to make Caprece do great big powerchucks. Caprece used to love sucking but not drinking at night so I would only give her one side for the evening and let her suck for a while.

Unsure about wind cos my 2 haven't really had many problems with it.

If it helps Caprece isn't the best sleeper at the moment either.

Hi Nikki, it could be reflux, even silent reflux, but can also just be a habit/personality thing. It's so hard to figure out what's causing preferences like that ay? From my experience, this kind of thing is best worked out with a mw or plunket nurse, get them (or you) to stay until they see what's going on etc. He may just be a very cuddly baby, but they won't be able to tell until they've spent a bit of time in his company.

The other thing to rule out is ear infection, yes little bubs can get them so early (Hannah had her first one just before 6 weeks). If he has had snuffles recently (or for his age, recently really = ever LOL) or favours one breast over the other, it's worth getting that ruled out too.

I hope he settles down for you soon! Briona had silent reflux and it took until 10 weeks to be diagnosed, even then was with a '?' so it was a very trying time.

Alex was diagnosed with silent reflux when he was 5 weeks old, and has since gone onto Losec (which is a drug that neutralises stomach acid) and it's made all the difference. His symptoms were arching his back and screaming after his feeds, sometimes screaming right up until his next feed. It took one midwife visit, three GP visits and a midnight A&E trip to get it diagnosed. It was incredibly distressing for everyone involved, but the Losec has made a massive difference and he's back to his normal happy self again.

Also, before the reflux set it we got into the habit of rocking Alex to sleep, but we've since found that the best way to get him to go down is to put him in bed when he's still awake. When he cries I go in there and pat him and shhhhh him for a bit, until he calms down and then I leave him to it. I try not to pick him up unless he gets really upset. The first few days of doing that is quite hard, but after a while the baby gets better at settling himself and you get better at learning from his cries when he'll settle himself and when he needs some help.

I guess one way to find out whether he's actually in pain or if he's just wanting more cuddles with mummy is to give him some pamol and see if that helps him settle. It's pretty harmless, as I understand it, so one 'experimental' dose should be perfectly safe. Not sure how much Tom weighs, but I think Alex was about 4.2kgs at his age and his dose then was about 1.5mls of pamol.

Hope this helps, it's not fun having an unsettled baby and not knowing what's wrong