First off let me say that I've spoken to a GP, HV and pharmacist about this and they all have differing advice. I'm sorry for the epically long post, but I want to get all the information out there so hopefully someone can help.
7 week old DD has been suffering with what I believed was colic from 4 weeks old. She began to drink less, eventually only having 1.5oz - 2.5oz per feed, screaming and fussing afterwards and not sleeping. She also had a couple of nappies where she was screaming whilst trying to poo, it was awful. We started using Dentinox colic drops alongside Dr Brown's bottles, and the difference was instantaneous! We got her weighed at 5 weeks and her weight had gone from the 50th centile to between the 25th and 50th, but as she'd had a bad week, we'd expected that! She'd started having 3-4oz per feed so I was confident things were picking up.
We took her back to be weighed yesterday and she's now dropped to between the 9th and 25th centile. HV was concerned and referred me onto the GP for a review. HV thinks it could be silent reflux, as DD sometimes has a bit of milk leak out of her mouth, she fusses after about 2oz of her feed and it can be a battle to get her to take anymore. Since 4 weeks she's gradually gone from having a couple of dirty nappies a day, to now having them once every 3 days. The poo is still green, but not pellet like but rather a large lump that's not dry but seems like it could almost be constipation IYKWIM?
The thing is DD sleeps like a dream at night, no problems laying flat swaddled in her cot. She wakes up, has her feed and goes back to sleep without any fussing or crying! In the day she's hard to settle to sleep - refuses to nap in her crib, pram, cot or bouncer but over the last few weeks she isn't exactly happy on our chests or in our arms either. It's really draining listening to her cry because she's so overtired, then she finally drops off and three minutes later she's awake again, drops off five minutes later then after ten minutes wakes up. She seems to sleep quite uneasily in the day.
I'm not sure it is reflux as DD is happy to sleep in her cot at night, and also has no problem laying on the changing mat etc to be changed. I wonder if she is a bit constipated, could that cause her to feed less and be able to get comfortable to sleep?
GP has given us Gaviscon on the basis that he thinks it might be reflux, and it doesn't hurt to try. When I pointed out that lots of people's babies had suffered constipation with Gavison, and I believe DD is already constipated, he agreed with me but said it wouldn't make her constipation any worse and that the reflux was important to sort out first. I asked about changing formulas but he didn't know about formula and was really aghast when I told him HV couldn't advise on formula and told me to ask the pharmacist.
Pharmacist says Gaviscon can't cause constipation. I asked if switching formulas could help and he said yes, and if he had to choose between using something like comfort milk or gaviscon, he'd go with the former first to see if it helped with the constipation or reflux.
HV has told me to give DD a feed every 3 hours now and keep a journal of her feeding schedule. I've always fed DD when she's asked for it, and as DD won't dreamfeed, I'm having to wake her up to feed her - which is fine if she's had a good stretch of sleep, but if she hasn't and has struggled to sleep, then she only has 1.5oz or 2oz, then fusses and screams because she's overtired. She takes ages to resettle, then we have to repeat it over again. Looking at the feeding schedule yesterday, I think she actually had a couple of oz's less than normal. Today has picked up a bit (so far) but as she's now feeding every 3 hours, she's taking less each feed so it evens itself out.
I would say that feeding on demand, or on a 3 hour schedule, she's only managing around 21oz a day whereas she needs to be having more like 24oz at least. I have to go back to have DD weighed next week, and they said they definitely want to see an improvement, but I don't know how?! At the moment I've decided to switch to comfort milk and see if it helps her constipation, which may help her drink more? She had one bottle of it last night - she only had 2oz, but this morning she had a more paste-like poo although it smelt absolutely foul
I'm so worried about this. HV and GP both said how concerned they were, and HV says DD's weight mustn't drop anymore and I somehow feel like it's my fault. I gave up breastfeeding DD at 14 days old as I had mastitus at 10 days which was agonising, then DD and I both got thrush as well as a bacterical infection all over my breasts which were big infected spots everywhere. Some of them still haven't gone, and I'm on my fourth week of antibiotics now plus medication for something else which GP said would be present in my milk for at least 2 weeks. Whilst she was BF we had none of these problems, so I can't help but feel that this IS my fault, if I had just carried on pumping and dumping for a few weeks and then tried to go back to breastfeeding, this wouldn't have happened
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Infant feeding
7 week old FF baby dropping centiles - help please!
47 replies
Elednor · 10/04/2014 17:44
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