My baby has jaundice. Should I offer water between feedings?
Your pediatrician will direct the appropriate treatment for jaundice
and use of liquid supplements. However, breast milk is the best liquid
cure for jaundice. In some cases more frequent breast-feeding is
necessary. Possibly for a couple of days you might feed every two hours.
That’s okay. The situation here calls for this adjustment and should be
only temporary.
How do I know if my baby is getting enough food in that first week
before my milk comes in?
Check his diaper. That’s right. A healthy stooling pattern is a positive
indicator of adequate nutrition during that first week. Newborn stools in
the first week transition from the first greenish black and sticky stool,
called meconium, to a brownie batter transition stool. This stool then
transitions to a mustard yellow stool. After the first week, look for two to
five or more yellow stools each day along with seven to eight wet diapers.
These all add up to indicate baby is getting what she needs.
Weeks Two through Eight
My baby seems to have her days and nights mixed up. She sleeps
long stretches during the day and has her alert time at night. How do I fix
it?
Unless you are willing to pull an all-nighter, you need a proactive
plan. Parent-directed feeding has what you need to get baby in sync with
reality. Wake your baby and feed her at three-hour intervals during the
day. This is where PDF differs from demand-feeding advice. With the
PDF plan, helping your child organize his feeding and sleep times is a
prerequisite to organizing his days and nights. That is why we advise that
you start with a preset time for the first morning feeding. From there,
wake your sleeping baby and feed her. Then at night, let her wake
naturally. However, during the first six weeks (preferably eight), breast-
