3 week old problem after feeding

SupaDupaFly

Hi guys,

My son is 3 weeks old today and is having problems with wind and I'm wondering is he suffering from silent reflux.

He is drinking 3-4oz of aptamil from tommee tippee anti colic bottles every 4 hours. He's great to drink and has no problem getting loads of burps up and farts down!

However, during feeds he cries in pain, arches his back. Pulls up his legs. I get the feeling he is drinking for comfort. Afterwards he is exhausted and falls alsleep but wakes screaming after 10 mins. He cried for between all his night Fred's last night with about twenty minutes sleep in total between each feed.

He does a lot of grunting, pulling up legs. Going red in the face straining trying to poo. Seems like he is trying to go all the time but only goes once a day and its not hard.

Anyone have any advice or experience of this? He is finding it so hard to settle and is overtired as a result. Getting progressively worse as time goes on. Any info appreciated boardsies
X

Moonbeam

It sounds like trapped wind to me but I am no expert.
Maybe bring him tot he PHN and ask her advice.

Redpunto

Id defo get in touch with PHN. Do you use a soother? Would that help if he wants to "suckle". If babies drink too mcuh they are likely to spit up any they dont want. Only other suggestion would be to try a different brand of milk?

SupaDupaFly

Redpunto wrote: »

Id defo get in touch with PHN. Do you use a soother? Would that help if he wants to "suckle". If babies drink too mcuh they are likely to spit up any they dont want. Only other suggestion would be to try a different brand of milk?

Think I will drop down to her tomorrow if he is no better. He uses an avent soother since he was 2 days old. Used to use it a lot but now isn't too interested in it all. Wad thinking of trying the aptimil comfort milk. Might be easier on his tummy. Thanks for your help.

Julo12

My lo went through a wk of having really bad wind at that age. I ordered gripe water from amazon and found it worked great. Is available from the north or some chemists here if u know where to look but amazon was v quick. I tried infacol and dentinox too but didn't notice any difference. I was feeding myself but have heard others say dr browns bottles are great for wind

treascon

Don't know whether or not your little one has silent reflux but my son had it around the 3 month mark & we went through several weeks of him in alot of pain screaming the house down at night. He would arch his back and pull his legs up to his chest. We switched to Aptamil Comfort together with Baby Gaviscon & he was like a different child within days. Hope you get something sorted with your little one soon. Know how stressful it is

SupaDupaFly

treascon wrote: »

Don't know whether or not your little one has silent reflux but my son had it around the 3 month mark & we went through several weeks of him in alot of pain screaming the house down at night. He would arch his back and pull his legs up to his chest. We switched to Aptamil Comfort together with Baby Gaviscon & he was like a different child within days. Hope you get something sorted with your little one soon. Know how stressful it is

My son seems much better during the day! He gets so much worse from 9pm on. Was that how your little one was? What age did it start for you? I'm wondering can they have it from birth and does your docrtor need to diagnose it? I know how my doctor is and she'll probably just say he'll be grand in a few weeks. Going to ring the public health nurse in the morning too because he'd definitely I do much pain. Thanks for your info x

treascon

My son was always worse at night too. He was in bits for about 2 weeks before he was diagnosed at about 3 months. I paid 50e for the doctor to tell me to use infant gaviscon which is available to buy over the counter anyway. But by god it is great stuff. Good luck

Davidth88

Gripe water may help , if you cant get it , maybe do what we did

We made weak camomile tea , and gave it ( cooled of course )...

Steven81

Gripe water did the job for us too, every now and again couldnt get up the wind, this does the trick perfect.

Queen of Sheebs

How do you give the gripe water or camomile tea? Thanks.

Ginny

Our 10 week old had bouts of that, have you tried burping him after every oz or so? Hell probably scream the place down for the bottle, but I used to stick the soother in and sorta hold it in with the hand you're propping their neck up with while burping, stops the crying sometimes. Infacol made a big difference too. Evening wise it can be a wind build up from during the day. We did/do colic exercises, bicycling legs, massaging stomach to help. Strangely enough he prefers being flat on his back on the changer or floor, calms him right down.

aristotle25

We changed to SMA Comfort and that helped. If it is usually the evening when your baby has these bouts of crying, arching back etc then it is probably colic and usually caused by tummy cramps from wind.

Things that helped us:

- SMA Comfort feed
- Infacol (does seem to help getting wind up easier(
- We use Dr Brown Bottles but hard to know how good they are as babies swallow air anyways
- Try whitenoise (get a CD/mp3 off the web, it sounds like a hairdryer) and I find that really works when things are bad and you need the baby to calm down. Have the baby held close and turn up the whitenoise fairly loud, it calms our guy down.

But as well remember it will get easier. We had all you described around week 2/3 and now at 8 weeks things are better. He still has bad days but it has improved a lot.

Davidth88

Queen of Sheebs wrote: »

How do you give the gripe water or camomile tea? Thanks.

The camomile tea we just cooled it and had it in a feeding bottle... then gave her a suck after her ' normal ' bottle ........ worked well enough TBH

partyguinness

Sounds like a problem we had with our little boy (he is 8mts now). He kept wanting bottle and the more we fed him the more distressed he got.
We found that by letting him feed for no more 5-6 seconds at a time helped.

In other words, let him feed for 5-6 seconds and take the bottle out and give him 4-5 seconds rest. Keep repeating this until he wants no more.

We figured that he was gorging himself and it was a case of letting him figure out that he was full and not in fact hungry at all. He was drinking too much at a time and prob cramping up and it was a vicious circle.

He was a new baby after this. Of course everyone kept telling us it was just wind which seems to be the standard reply...lol!!

Just another tip, he will only sleep on his stomach which he has done from day one. We kept putting him on his back and just never went more that 10-15 min before crying. We took him to a baby osteopath how told us straight away that there was pressure at the back of head (from labour and nothing to worry about) and lying on his back would give him headaches. We never said a word about the sleep problems and she said it straight away. That might be something to look into.

It gave us a lot of comfort and she explained that babies have their bodies (joints etc) a little traumatised from labour which they grow out of very quickly but at least we felt a little better in that we understood his body better.

Good luck!

SupaDupaFly

Thanks for all the replies guys. All the tips and info have been a big help.

Baby got diagnosed with silent reflux and has been on gaviscon since Monday. It seems to be doing something for him! He is much more settled and no more gagging and acidic breath. He doesn't get as bothered lying down now too which is great. Hopefully he grows out of it soon.

Neyite

SupaDupaFly wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies guys. All the tips and info have been a big help.

Baby got diagnosed with silent reflux and has been on gaviscon since Monday. It seems to be doing something for him! He is much more settled and no more gagging and acidic breath. He doesn't get as bothered lying down now too which is great. Hopefully he grows out of it soon.

Thats good to hear. I suspected silent reflux when my guy was newborn - it simply didnt fit the colic symptoms. In our case while baby galvascon helped somewhat (its so bloody awkward to make up from the sachets as well), but homeopathy solved it and got rid of it completely. I didnt believe in homeopathy but weeks of seeing the poor mite in pain after every.single.feed, I would have tried anything, so I agreed when it was offered to me to give it a shot. Totally placid baby afterwards.

SupaDupaFly

Neyite wrote: »

Thats good to hear. I suspected silent reflux when my guy was newborn - it simply didnt fit the colic symptoms. In our case while baby galvascon helped somewhat (its so bloody awkward to make up from the sachets as well), but homeopathy solved it and got rid of it completely. I didnt believe in homeopathy but weeks of seeing the poor mite in pain after every.single.feed, I would have tried anything, so I agreed when it was offered to me to give it a shot. Totally placid baby afterwards.

Great to hear theres an alternative to long term medication Neyite! Can u ask what's involved and how long did it take to work? Was it expensive?

Also heard great things about osteopathy. Will have to look into both. Thanks for all the replies guys. Gaviscon seems to be hit and miss but he is a bit more settled thank god.

elaney

Ah supa sorry to hear your little one has silent reflux. My cousin had the same problem with her little one she tried osteopathy and swore by it.It didnt get rid of it completely but gave her little one great relief.

Also my Phn was saying when she suspected my little one had it that i need to elevate the cot to about 30 degrees. You are probably doing this already.

SupaDupaFly

elaney wrote: »

Ah supa sorry to hear your little one has silent reflux. My cousin had the same problem with her little one she tried osteopathy and swore by it.It didnt get rid of it completely but gave her little one great relief.

Also my Phn was saying when she suspected my little one had it that i need to elevate the cot to about 30 degrees. You are probably doing this already.

Thanks elaney, I'm looking into osteopathy. Would be worth a shot. Anything is worth a try if it will stop the pain. Elevating his cot and keeping him upright as long as possible after feeds. Has helped a bit but not much. Thanks for the tips.