Hi Esme and welcome. Glad all seems to be going well and welcome to the dummy converts, of which I am one!

Maranui: Good on Louis for his weight gain, BF must be going well!

Phoenix: I get a dirty nappy every feed, seems that the BF stimulates a big windy poo and the frequency depends on how often we are feeding at the time. BF babies are very variable in their poo habits, unless becomes very watery, offensive smelling or big increase in daily amounts, wouldn't be too woried.

Kellie: The whole nocturnal issue is going pretty well. We have introduced bedtime routine, bathtime, feed in dimly lit room and then wrapped and into basinette. We tell him it is "sleep time" then put him in basinette in our bedroom and leave the room (they don't understand the language at the moment obviously but will associate it with bedtime). TV stays on as it seems to settle him a bit better, time it takes to settle can be variable between 15 mins and 1hour usually, we also use dummy as he needs to suck himself to sleep and then spits it out and doesn't wake up for it which is good. He will usually cry within the first few minutes and we go straight in, put dummy back in, tell him sleep time and leave again. We tend to find that the t ime between crying episodes gradually increases until he is asleep. On top of this we try and keep him awake as much as possible during the day with play time and increased feeds to every 3 hours, if he shows tired signs we let him sleep but will wake him up again.

Got my advice from Child Health Nurses who I have found to be great. They have said that newborns just carry on their in utero routine which is nocturnal and if you don't flip it they sill stay that way, she also said the sooner the better and the easier the transition. They also said that for feed before bed and overnight feeds to not make eye contact, she said that by interacting with him I was his "plaything"as all they can recognise at this age is faces and their vision focal distance is about that of when you are BF. After every feed we do nappy change in dim light again and then re-wrap, tell him sleep time and straight back into basinette, again no eye contact to stimulate him.

Fingers crossed it seems to be working great. Last night was a bit more difficult as he must be having growth spurt and milk bar is open every 2 hours, he was also irritable and difficult to get back to sleep but all the other nights have been such a dramatic improvement.

Tan: I have bought some infacol wind drops today, think Maranui uses them too. We too are having some wind problems due to fast flow and gulping feeds. I'll let you know how I go.