How to give Colief when breastfeeding
Ava has been prescribed Colief to hopefully help with her digestion. On reading the instructions I had a total meltdown at the thought of having to express at every feed.
I searched the internet for an easier way of doing it and came across an old thread which gave me an idea.
Here is how I do it.
You will need:
Something to express with or your hand
2 sterilised bottles
6 sterilised syringes 3 or 5ml
Colief
Sterilised storage box
Steps:
1. Express. I use the medela swing and am expressing each morning at roughly the same time, between 9-11. You only need 1 ounce a day so don’t panic. I’m using the extra to build up a stock in the freezer.
2. Put 1 ounce into a sterilised bottle.
3. Using a syringe to get 2.5-3ml of milk.
4. Put the 2.5-3ml of milk into the other bottle.
5. Drop in 4 drops of colief and give it a stir with the syringe.
6. Suck back up the milk and place syringe into the sterilised container. Tip, tilt the bottle so the milk collects in one place to suck back up.
7. Repeat for the rest of the doses.
You should now have a tub full of the 6 doses you will need for the next 24 hours.
You can keep this in the fridge and can also take what you need out with you in another sterilised container. Breast milk can be kept at room temperature for up to 6 hours. If you are going to be out for longer than this, keep them in a cool bag.
8. To prepare before a feed. Place the syringe into a sterilised bottle of boiling water. It only needs to be in for a short while. Remember to check the temperature by squeezing a tiny bit out before giving to your baby.
9. Before a feed slowly syringe the milk into your babies mouth. Ava will take this quite happily.
Tip: I have also given the syringe halfway through a feed when one wasn’t ready and she was starving!
I hope this helps 🙂
1 Comment
Many thanks for this post – it was very helpful. However, upon reading the manufacturer faq I discovered that the working life of the lactase is only 30 minutes once you’ve put it in room temperature milk (if in fridge it’s 4 hours). So with your method it’s only really digesting what’s in the syringes. So I adapted your method slightly by leaving out the Colief in the syringes. Then when my LO starts to signal he’s hungry, I squirt out one syringe of expressed milk into an egg cup or shot glass (!) mix in 4 drops of Colief, then syringe it all back up and feed. Your readers may also like to know that you can mix the milk at the start of your method with Infacol and liquid vitamins too. I also found too that my LO (4 weeks old) would sometimes be too frustrated to take the syringe at the start (it’s very important not to force it). So like you said, I let him breastfeed a bit first then try again with the syringe (keeping in mind the 30-minute window for digestion). If this didn’t work though, then I found I could squirt a tiny amount at a time (0.2ml) into his cheek while he’s actually latched by depressing my breast slightly and inserting the syringe tip into the corner of his mouth. Be careful not to choke him and ideally time it when you’re not letting down and he’s having a bit of a breather. Hope this all makes sense and is helpful.