Savela Family Scoop: Five Weeks!

Kinley is 5 weeks old! In the past few days she has really started to smile more. They are still spontaneous smiles, but they are occurring while she is awake! She is starting to sleep less often during the day and slightly longer stretches at night. She will sleep about 6 hours for the first stretch of the night and then do one or two shorter stretches of 2-3 hours each.

Often times after she eats she is very cranky. We have figured out that she has symptoms of reflux. We haven't discussed it with her doctor, only because at her one month checkup I had mentioned that she spits up a lot. Her doctor wasn't concerned as she said most babies spit up a good amount because they have to figure out just how much their stomachs can hold. At the time, her spit up wasn't consistent and she wasn't always fussy after eating. The other big thing is that although she was spitting up, she is still going to the bathroom regularly and still gaining weight. I did lots of research and found lots of natural methods for treating reflux. I also learned that it is not ideal to use the medication that they have for infants for reflux for two reasons. One..it doesn't make the digestive system work as hard to breakdown the food, thus making it weaker in the long run. Two..by the medication reducing the acid in the stomach the acid is not able to breakdown the bacteria in the stomach..leading to other problems and infections. For both of those reasons, I wanted to find a way to help Kinley without medication if possible. If the natural ways didn't work, then I would bring it up with her doctor.

Some of her symptoms was that she was puking a lot after every feeding and was crying/screaming/arching her back/kicking her legs every time she ate. I now try to feed her in as upright of a position as possible and I only feed her on one side at each feeding. I burp her after the first couple minutes of eating and fairly frequently after that. Also, when I burp her, I do not pat her back, I just rub it. After feeding her I hold her upright over my shoulder for a minimum of a half hour (longer during the day, but at night being up for a extra half hour after she was done eating was tough). During the day after feeding I either had her suck on my finger or a pacifier (she wouldn't take the pacifier in the beginning which is why my finger worked). I did prop her mattress up slightly on one end. I also had her sleep tilted towards her side at night. During the day I would either hold her upright to sleep or put her in the swing. Sometimes I also put her on her stomach to sleep, as long as I am right there to watch her. Infant massages daily as much as possible (even during eating) helps. It triggers the vagus nerve to respond and that innervates to esophageal sphincter to help keep acid and food down. It's best to massage the tummy (Kinley never likes her belly rubbed), but you can do the back as well. I massage her back as I am feeding her. Also bicycle legs helps with the gas for some kids..this is 50/50 for Kinley. Overall, most kids grow out of reflux between 6-8 weeks once their digestive system starts to mature. Kinley still spits up, but the volume of it is much less and she is not in pain much anymore. I don't know which of these things helped best because I did them all at once, but I really think they've helped a ton without having to turn to medication. So for now, we will manage her symptoms naturally.

This week, Kinley got to spend more time at the pool. The water is still a little chilly, but she does like to go in for a few minutes. And swimming sure does make her tired! She is really becoming quite the little Houdini when sleeping. She really likes her arms to be free and she will do all she can to escape her swaddle. She also has started to really fight sleep during the day and is not letting herself go to sleep until she absolutely cannot stay awake any longer!