Ask our experts

My son is 22 weeks old I am worried about his sleeping habits and lack of proper routing.He still wakes every 2-3 hours at night (sometimes after 1 hour) which I am finding exhausting and I keep meeting other mothers whose similarly aged babies sleep through. I keep reading that he should be able to soothe himself back to sleep but I don't want to leave him as I worry that he is hungry. Does he need to be feeding this regularly during the night -(he is a big baby about 20lbs)? He has a bottle of formula at 8 pm but then I breast feed him through the night & day. During the day he will have 3 naps of only 40 minutes at the most but seems grumpy again 20mins after waking up. I don't know if he is getting enough sleep or if I should be leaving him to cry himself back off as someone suggested. I've also been advised he needs to start having baby rice as he is a larger baby and is not getting enough satisfaction from just breastmilk & 1 bottle of formula a day. Please help as I feel I am failing him and creating a tired grumpy baby!

Hello Christine and thank you for contacting us. Now I’m checking that I’m understanding what you are saying: your baby is about 5 months old and wakes regularly at night; you are finding that exhausting, and have noticed that your friends’ babies are sleeping through better. You are also concerned that you are not doing the best for him. I hop I’ve got that right.

The first thing that strikes me Christine is how you respond to your baby at night, despite your tiredness, as you feel he has needs. That is not failing him; it is responsive parenting – observing your child and trying to meet his needs. It must be very confusing for you because you seem to have been reading books which recommend self-soothing, which many people would see as a way of ignoring a child’s needs, especially with such a young baby.  You might be happy to read Babycalming as an antidote to the other books.

That still leaves the issue of his frequent waking, and you ask if he needs feeding this regularly. Well he might, and there again he might not, which is not a helpful response. But it may be possible to alter aspects of the breastfeeding management so that he might sleep for longer. Without knowing more I could not say for sure. Talking to one of our breastfeeding counsellors on 0870 4448708 might help clarify things for you, and give you some tips  to ease things for you.

I hope this helps. Best of luck Christine.

Eithne Murray, breastfeeding counsellor

I am currently breastfeeding my 3 week old baby girl and having problems filling her up. As she had lost more than 10% of her birth weight my breastfeeding midwife watched the way I was feeding her and suggested feeding her every 3 hours and topping her up with expressed milk. She will feed for up to 3 hours which is obviously exhausting so the midwife said to take her off after 3/4 hour. She will take up to 100ml of EBM after every feed and will take about 3/4 hr to have it. How can I get her to take it all off me and not have to express? But in less than 3 hours! The midwife has checked her mouth which is fine, her suck is strong and she is possitioned ok. Please help as all I seem to do all day and night is feed or be expressing milk.

Hello Charlotte and congratulations on the birth of your little girl. You sound quite frustrated by the feeding. Three hours seems rather long for one feed, if I have understood you correctly. I’m not surprised that you want to shorten the feeds.

I have to confess to being a little puzzled by the midwife’s comments. Normally when feeds are taking a long time coupled with the fact that there seems to be an issue with weight gain it would lead me to suspect that the positioning could be adjusted. You might find it worthwhile to look at Jack Newman's pages or the photographs on pages 8-11 of this book to see if it matches up with what’s happening with you and your baby.

A breastfeeding counsellor might be able to give more helpful information as well if she knew more of the story. You can try us on 0870 4448708.

I hope this works out for you Charlotte. The expressing and feeding sound really exhausting.

Best of luck.

Eithne Murray, breastfeeding counsellor

Hello,

My baby was 7 weeks premature. He was delivered by caesarean. During the time he was in the premature baby ward I breast pumped milk and left it for the nurses to feed him when I wasn’t there. On returning home with him, I was asked to continue to give him liquid vitamins and minerals. The nurse advised that I continue to pump milk and use this milk to give the baby the minerals and vitamins.

Pumping milk was hard work!! I kept all the extra milk and froze it. The nurse kept telling me that I was very fortunate to be able to breast feed as most mothers who have caesareans are unable to breast feed. I was petrified that my milk would stop.

13 weeks later my freezer is full of breast milk and I am feeding the baby and producing about 200ml extra milk a day!! I feed him 4 – 5 times a day. He has his vitamins and minerals twice a day in about 50 ml each time. We are giving the baby a formula bottle around 11pm each night to encourage him to sleep longer during the night. He usually wakes at 4am and I breast feed again.

My question is what do I do now? I am really confused. I feel tied to that breast pump! Yesterday I didn’t pump at all and I was in such pain and completely drenched that I pumped after I fed the baby at 4am. Do I keep on freezing the extra milk? In what way will I use this frozen milk?

Thanks

Emma

Hi Emma,

It sounds as though you have had alot to contend with since your baby was born. The milk that you have produced during this time has been a lifeline to him and it is clear from your e-mail that you have alot to offer, yet it sounds as though you are seriously worried about not having enough. There is no particular reason to suggest that your milk will run out especially if you are breastfeding him now. For some women it is simply about gaining enough confidence in themselves and the situation and realising that their baby is surviving because of you!!

Sometimes the stress of a premature birth resulting in a ceasarean, especially if there are complications can make it too stressful for some women to fully establish breastfeeding but a ceasarean does not mean that a woman cannot breastfeed, indeed not being physically capable is very rare and can happen whether a woman has had a ceasarean or not. Usually it is due to a lack of support that causes women to give up or stop.You are clearly through this phase now.

The main issue seems to be that you are still giving vitamins and minerals via a bottle, you don't say how long you have been told to give these. A practically exclusively breastfed baby should not need supplementation unless there is something else going on or he is needing to catch up still. Perhaps it  would be worth investigating this with a health professional. It might be that you gradually cut down on the expressing and just use what is in the freezer especially if you can get some idea of how long you need to carry on the vits and mins. If you need to carry on long term perhaps you could use the formula to give the vits and mins? It does sound as if you are almost exclusively breastfeeding now and if that is the case my suggestion would be to just express enough milk to ease any discomfort as and when to slowly release the excess milk and just carry on breastfeeding as normal. The key to being comfortable and not in pain or drenched with milk is just to express for comfort as that way you are signalling to the breasts that you need to release the milk, not make more.

Hope that helps to answer your question and ease some of the confusion for you Emma.

Best wishes for the future.

Jane Saville, Breastfeeding Counsellor

My baby is 15 weeks and until last week was fully breastfed. Unfortunatley, because he was not gaining enough weight I now have to supplement 2 feeds a day with a bottle of formula. The first week was fine and I didn't have any problems, but now I am finding it difficult to breastfeed - he keeps coming off only after a short amount of time and I am finding that he seems to prefer one breast to the other. Could it be that my milk is drying up? or do babies breastfeed quicker as they get older? If you could make some suggestions it would be appreciated. I don't really want to give up feeding until 6 months.

Thank you

Carly

Hi Carly,

My first thought upon viewing this e-mail was to feel the urge to ask more about the weight gain issues as I am loathed to comment on it unless I have more info so it may be better for you to call the national helpline to discuss this further if you wish only because I don't want to jump to conclusions that will only serve to be more unhelpful. All I will say is ask yourself whether your baby really does need supplementing or is it just that he has been slow to gain weight? If he has not lost weight and is not thought to have any other medical issues then it may be worth considering how you could increase your supply rather than supplementing with formula as your goal is clearly to feed him for six months.

It is common for the milk supply to begin to deminish once any quanitiy of formula has been introduced on a regular basis as it remains in the gut longer and is digested more slowly. Additionally it doesn't come to him as quickley and so he may prefer one side as it flows quicker than the other. Either way, it is likely that the introduction of formula will impact on an exclusivley breastfed baby.

I do think it would be useful to ring the line 0870 444 8708 to discuss you options further.

Hope this helps

Best wishes

Jane Saville Breastfeeding Counsellor 

Hello,
I am 36 weeks pregnant with my second child. I drank Raspberry leaf tea during the pregnancy of the first as it is thought to aid labour. Given the ease of birth of the first I want to do the same again!! My problem is this; I remember that it is advised not to drink too much, too early-on in the pregnancy but have lost all my notes on this and can't seem to locate anything on the subject on your site.
Can you offer any advice or direct me to where I may be able to find it? Thanks in advance for your help and keep up the good work!!

Hi Julia,

Thank you for contacting the NCT and congratulations on your pregnancy. 

You are quite correct raspberry leaf tea shouldn't be taken in the first 2 trimesters of pregnancy but from about 32 - 34 weeks.  The doseage should increase gradually though the final few weeks of pregnancy.  Limited research has been undertaken but from the research that has been carried out it is thought there are minimal risks in its use, so taking it from 36 weeks should help tone the uterus muscles and so make them more efficient in labour.  It does not seem to induce labour but it is thought that labour starts nearer to the due date for those women who have taken it.

It is not appropriate to take respberry leaf tea in cases of constipation, iron deficiency anaemia or malnutrition.

You can often find the leaf tea or the tea in tablet form in health food stores and from internet

Julia, I hope this is useful information and that you have another straight forward labour and birth.

best wishes

Clare Charlton, Antenatal teacher

I have just found out that i am pregnant a few days ago and last night i was suffering from severe stomach cramps, radiating from my pelvis to my back with no bleeding. I woke up and this morning they have gone any suggestions?

Thank you

Hi Ruth,

Thank you for contacting the NCT, congratulations on your pregnancy.

You don't say how many weeks pregnant you are.  We can't give medical advice here at the NCT so you may like to discuss this pain with your Community Midwife.   There can be a variety of reasons why there can be pain in early pregnancy but these are best checked out by your midwife or GP.  You can contact your local midwife through your GP surgery.

I realise that this might not completely answer your question Ruth but I do hope you midwife can put you mind at ease or find out what is the cause.

best wishes

Clare Charlton, Antenatal teacher

i am 37 weeks pregnant with my third child. last week the doctor said the head was engaged. How long until i go into labor i have been having strong braxton hicks and backache.

Hi Ria

Thank you for contacting the NCT.

Unfortunately it is not possible to know when you will go into labour.  The signs are there for you that your body is starting to prepare for labour, but no one is really sure what starts labour.  I am sorry that I am not able to help you any more.

Ria it is worth trying to relax and just await the onset rather than getting anxious if labour does not start soon.  Remember that term pregnancy can last up to 42 weeks.

I hope that your labour goes well and you are soon able to meet the new addition to your family.

Sandra Runeckles Antenatal teacher

what is the best breast pump on the market please?

Hello Elizabeth

Thanks for your question. I am sorry, but I am not going to be able to give you a straightforward answer. There are many different types of breastpumps on the market (including from NCT Shop), and these may suit different women for different reasons. A cheaper, simpler model may be just fine for a mother who only wants to express occasionally. A bigger pump might be the choice of a women who is pumping large amounts every day. Some women prefer a hand-operated pump, while other pumps feel they respond better to an electric one - and so on.

Not much use to you, I appreciate! You might want to think about what it is that you want from a breastpump, and if it would help you to chat this through, please feel free to call the NCT Breastfeeding Line on 0870 444 8708. The breastfeeding counsellor won’t recommend a particular item, but she will help you to work out what might matter to you in making your choice. She should also be able to support you with any information about getting started with a pump; it’s perfectly normal to find that you get no more than a few drops at first, and this doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem with the pump or the milk supply.

Elizabeth, I hope that you can find a way to choose a pump with confidence. 

Kind regards 

Kirsty Nicol

Breastfeeding Counsellor

I got a screen positive for my combined test with risk of 1 in 190 of a Down's baby which didn't concern me too much and I don't want any diagnostic tests. I was told by the midwife this test just looks at Down's and doesn't indicate any other problems, she didn't know what levels are normal of the blood markers. But then I heard that low PAPP-A for example was linked to increased risk of prematurity, stillbirth etc. My results at 13 weeks are nuchal 1.9mm, PAPP-A 4690 miu/l, free beta hCG 83.2ng/ml, age 39. I don't know if my blood results are too low or high and I'm more concerned about risk of stillbirth than Down's but don't know how to find out whether my results show an increased risk of that.
Many thanks.

Dear Louise,

Thank you for contacting the NCT.  I'm afraid we are not able to give individual medical advice, but if you ask your midwife she should be able to arrange for someone at your local hospital to speak to you about your test results and explain what they mean.

Although low PAPP-A levels have been found to be associated with an increased risk of stillbirth, the risk is still a very low one, so I hope that these worries won't prevent you from enjoying your pregnancy.

 Best wishes

I am nearly 10 days overdue. I saw my midwife last week and she proformed a sweep but she had difficuities getting to the cervix as it's posterior. So the sweep hasn't worked! I am due to go into hospital this week to be induced but what will happen if the cervix hasn't moved? I have read that a c-section may be needed as it may cause me to have a long labour. Please can you help as getting abit worried now (this is my 1st). Thank you.

Dear Selina,

 Thank you for contacting the NCT and congratulations on your pregnancy.

The first thing to consider is whether you think the "due date" that you have been given is accurate.  If your cervix is so far back it may be that your body is not yet ready to go into labour.  Is the date based on a scan during the first 16-18 weeks of your pregnancy?  If not, it may not be all that accurate and you might want to wait a bit longer to give yourself time to go into labour naturally.

In any case, you do not have to be induced if you do not want to be.  Current guidance is that women should be offered induction between 41 and 42 weeks of pregnancy, because there appears to be a very slightly increased risk of stillbirth in pregnancies that last longer than this - but the risk is still very small, and some women choose to wait for labour to begin, with regular checks being made of their baby's well-being in the meantime.  Your hospital should support you if this is your decision.

If you do agree to be induced, the midwife should check the condition of your cervix and offer you another sweep before trying anything else.  After that you should be offered a dose of a drug called "prostaglandin" which is usually inserted into your vagina as a pessary or gel.  This works to soften and prepare the cervix and is often all that is needed to get labour going.  If nothing has happened after 2 successive doses then you and your carers should review the situation and decide on a course of action - which might be to go home and wait a few more days, to try another dose of prostaglandin or to proceed to a Caesaean, depending on how you and your baby are doing.  You can find an outline of the latest guidelines from NICE on their website http://www.nice.org.uk/CGD

I hope this is helpful, and wish you all the best for a straightforward labour and birth.