LO not sleeping... :(

Hey Lee, Poonam. tikka, Vidyaa and Ponlatha - THanks. It is good to know that someone is listening and responding.
Tikka - agree on taking her to the doc. DH also said same thing. When we took her to paed last week, she said that if the loose motions did not suubside, she will have to prescribe a/b, and that is what worries me now.
All - Its like this. My DD is a combination of Poonam's and Vidyaa's. See wants to feed always. And yes PonLatha - sometimes, she doesn't feed properly, she keeps grunting even when feeding. Feeding is the only time when she looks calm. Otherwise, she grunts, twists, turns red and passes motion which is loose. Infact, she passes stools almost everytime she wets, very little. Because of the grunting, she is not able to sleep or play. She gets irritated and cranky.
Tikka - Bouncing, rocking what not - It works sometimes, for the past 2 days nothing has worked :((
Lee - What is vayuvidang.Not sure if I will take it, but just wanted to know.
I am just tired. With my mom busy in household work, I am feeling helpless in handling her. Its heart breaking to see her get up from a deep sleep grunting. DH does come at nights, but can't make himget up evrytime as he has office.
Thanks for the HUGS, I really needed it.

Other possible issues:

1) LO not sleeping coz of tiredness:
Try this. If this happens in the day,when the weather is fine, give them a quick bath. Massage them before bath, with slight baby oil. Quickly dress them, feed and put them to sleep. If i do all of this within 15mins, my LO wud sleep immedietly. If i give an elaborate bath,dress up slowly, i feel I am making my LO more and more tired in the process :)

If this happens in the night,you cannot give bath, just press the baby's legs, hands, shoulders n back gently, not too hard. Then I have a hot bag, filled with hot water.I spread a dry cotton cloth over it, as if am warming up the cloth. When its warm enough for the baby, just fold and dab them gently all over their body. Again, i do this quickly, coz i think if i over-do this, my LO becomes more tired. Quickly dress him up and put him to sleep.

After the above said dressing up,if i feel that he had his feed just some 1/2hr or 45mins back, and if i feel he has had enough, then i give around 1ml of warm water (mostly jeera water) and put him to sleep.

2) Putting LO to sleep-Sleeping position:
Sing and rock them in ur hands(my DS hates this, but my DD wud sleep in this position)
Put them in shoulders, sing and pat this back while walking (my LO loves this)
You sit like you are in a push-back seat. Cushion ur back well. Put your LO,on you,side ways, with his head right on your chest,sing slowly or play some low instrumental and gently pat. (My LO loves this too...)
Put them in thottil, and gently sway, sing too. If they cry, adjust their position, but dont change a position soon... if u just try a position for abt 15mins, they wud mostly settle down. Only if they cry too much, then change the position ie, from sitting to walking, etc

3) Putting LO to sleep - dressing up:
Somedays I wud wrap him inside a towel or a wrapper.
Somedays, I wud dress him with full hand tops inserted into fullpants, socks, cap and just put him to sleep. No wrapping. Everyday something or the other works.

Somedays,instead of wrapping and full covered dressing, in the thottil, i wud put a thick baby blanket first, ask mymom or DH to hold it, then put him in. He is comfortable and sleeps off...

There are many days when none of these have worked and I would co-sleep then :))) heheheeeeeeeeeeeee
NO other go guys, somehow we got to pass on this stage.

Happy motherhood!!!!!!!!!!

LOL Lynette. Why would I wanna stop anyone from feeding anything they want to their child. It is afterall their child.
If anything I am trying to give the mom in question the other side of the story and access to information that can balance their point of view.
The information in question is that the largest number of infant deaths from India is because of diarrhoeal diseases that arise in children below the age of 6 months from giving things other than breastmilk.
The information you may not know is that powdered formula is not sterilised unlike liquid formula and in the west, they are withdrawing many, many products because of deaths from gastric infectious diseases from the formula.
In India, of course, there is a conspiracy of silence. Our drinking water is of the poorest quality amongst even the developing world and that means many of our children us fall ill more often than the children in developed nations from diarrhoeal diseases.
Ayurveda and Siddha medicines in India are not standardised. That means a vial of the ayurveda meds you buy could be good and the next vial be contaminated. I have met children who had kidney failure from the contaminated homoeopathy medicines. Heavy metals, routinesly mercury, lead were found in their blood samples.
You are a very aware mom, please do do your own search on the effects of heavy metal on your body, leave alone a very young child. It killed me to meet these kids hooked up to dialysis machines because their parents did not believe in allopathic cure.
I have seen many children fall ill from consuming all kinds of kitchen remedies. I have just returned from my travels in Tamil Nadu after talking to a mother who lost her three-month-old child because of dehydration from diarrhoea. She succumbed to her family's pressure to give *Kai Vaidyam* for colic; exclusive breastfeeding will protect your child against these infections.
India does poorly than even the least developed nations of Sub-Saharan Africa when it comes to infant mortality and maternal mortality. Too many babies are dying in India even now. Please do educate yourself about the causes of these deaths, unlike in Sub-saharan Africa where famine and wars contibute to high infant death rates, in India it is from completely preventable causes like non-exclusive breastfeeding in the first few months.
My advice to you too is to be careful, extremely careful of what you put into your child's mouth. They are very vulnerable at this age. I would hate for anything to happen to the babies of any of IL mommies, if I had a chance to most mommies. If you want to continue advocating a mother to put her child at risk for diarrhoeal diseases, there is little I can do about it.
Just wanted to add that I practised what I preach and have seen that my child had one, just one diarrhoeal episode that needed medical attention in the three years of his life. Lynette, really, it is up to you and every mommy here what they do. I only hope for the sake of the babies that it is an informed decision.
This is the last I want to say anthing about alternative therapies or non-exclusive breastfeeding on this thread. Thanks for reading.

If babies cry non-stop, inspite of you changing position, not even listening when u sing/play music, even if u feed, if u feel they are not happy n passified, they groan/cry/twist and feed with difficulty, then all u need to do is, divert them somehow. I have tried the below :)

Check their dresses, whether they are too tight, too loose that they feel the chillness. Check all over their skin for any rashes or red spots. Check if mosquitos are there. Check whether the ornaments they wear - kolusu, bangle are irritating (better remove them in the nights).
Check if you have over-dressed/wrapped them and coz of that they might sweat. Check if they have hurt themselves with their nails. (This commonly happens). Once all these checks are over, try the below.

Take them to another room, with a different light or different temp.

Dab a dry, warm cloth over their back or tummy.

Undress, slightly dab them with powder n re-dress quickly.

Give little warm water n burp. Make sure the water is boiled well, the spoon or the cup that you use are strerilised. This is very very important. Always wash everything with hot water before use. Including ur hand too.

Change the song :)

My LO gets diverted immedietly when my DD talks loudly. I guess sharp/shrill voice diverts them.

Sometimes if i take him near the table fan, he stops for a min and quickly i take him away,pat/rock n put him to sleep.

Sometimes nothing works, i let him cry for sometime, take abreak, fresh myself up, eat, then co-sleep :)))

BTW,my DD(3yrs old) is down with viral fever for the past 3days, my mom and DH are attending to her completely. Me and LO are in a separate room. Nobody enters this room. Am talking to my DD over phone from my room to hers... :(, but i have told her,there isa competition going on with all her class kids, they got toplay hide n seek with their mommies, and talk over phone for 5days. Whoever wins wud get a new toy... :))) And its working !!!!!!!!!!!!

Pls pray for her, mommies.

out of frustration went to meet paed today, and he said LO was super fine. and that colic/gassiness isnt that big a matter of concern if she is feeding and peeing well.
but he did suggest colicaid drops whenever she is too colicky.
also i was told not even a drop of water is necessary until she is 6 months old.
also asked me to burp her for longer and to completely avoid lying down position for feeding her.
i asked whether i should be avoiding any foods for myself, he only has asked to reduce the spices. but i hv realised i am weighing the pros n cons of everything i eat and become quite irritable myself.
today zoey was a bit too bloated, and around 6 she passed this extremely explosive stool once we removed her nappy... never hv i seen her pass stool with such force... it went and showered the opposite wall which is 2 ft away! poor thing wld hv been feeling so uneasy all day.

theres little i can do to give her other than breastmilk, but i think i might start to take ajwain water everyday.
these days zoey grunts n cries , very restless , and i end up crying along with.

her weight gain has been fantastic. 1.04 kilos from the time we left the hospital.

the paed has suggested multivitamin drops for her.

really moms, colic kills mommies more than the bub.

ramya, zoey grunts nonstop , and strains from 6 am to 9-10 am till she relieves herself passing gas and stools.... so i can understand wat u going through.... i guess we just hv to hang in there.. and wait for them to grow up, out of this ... :(

Have seen many paed., incl., mine always says that we can eat whatever we want to; nothing to do with the colic. So, it is upto us, moms, to choose the food items which is less sensitive to the kids to avoid the colic prob., atleast to the minimal level. I noticed some improvements when avoided a few veggies, cut down junks completely etc. with my daughter's colic problem then.

So, guys, try and take care...

Oh Oh! I am feeling really bad reading your posts, ramya, vidya and poonam. My LO was also stressing and straining last week. She has got better last three days (touchwood). She was not at all sleeping and was feeling very tired. Even now she is wriggling quite a lot, but sleep has got better. My mom and I are singing our hearts out , she is going to hate those songs when she grows up

Please dont worry too much about water stools, that is what my midwife told. According to her, stools are watery for exclusively breastfed babies because breastmilk is digested easily.

I agree completely with Tikka regarding home medicines for baby. My amma has brought some medicines for baby which they use in Kerala on new born babies (it is a mixture of honey, vayambu (dont know the english of this herb) and gold!!) and I politely told her we are not going to give her anything. Also she wanted to give her water, I told we cant!

She is gaining weight rather slowly, was 3 at birth, lost about 270 g, now she is at 3.38 at 3 weeks. Tikka, how do you see this weight gain? Acc. to the charts she is between 9th and 25th percentile and I feel this is fine.

Ramya what do you mean by loose stools? Like Rekha says the breastfed poop is loose and watery. Just trying to see if there is blood, mucous, bad odour anything else to indicate there is an infection. In my opinion, it may be better to order a stool culture like Vidyaa said she had done before actually going on a/b. Not wanting to scare you, but there is a link between antibiotic usage in the first year and allergies and asthma later in life. I am sure your paed is also bargaining for time, but the better way to do it could be ensure there is a reason for using antibiotics. My two cents.
Also nodding with Ami here. It could help writing out a colic diary: does your baby have specific crying time, early evening, late night, etc. Note down your menu.
It turned out DS was sensitive to chocolates in my diet, I did not eat the milk bars, but cocoa was there in small quantities in all my food like health bars, hot chocolate. DS still has terrible constipation with chocolate. Yesterday, he had chocolate cake. Voila, today he had a bad time pottying. Making a list of what I ate and noting down DS's crying fits helped me eliminate chocolate and milk.
Rekha: If I remember right, your baby regained her birth weight on day 12, right? So it makes 380 grams in 10 days? That's a good weight gain. I also believe many lactational consultants mark the weight gain from the lowest point, rathern than birth weight, so that would make it 680 gms in 18 days?
I am not sure what chart the UK health system uses, but I believe the WHO chart for breastfed babies are not used in the US widely and a lot of moms are given a tough time about poor weight gain. Some links on weight gain.
Methinks in the growth chart for breastfed babies, your baby will be a much higher percentile, without actually charting.
P.S. Ponlatha's warm washcloth to belly technique really worked for us. I have not read your post in full, but this one suggestion just stood out.