Weaning very colicky baby at 20weeks?

[cupcake78]

Gp has this morning confirmed dd has bad colic at 18 weeks . Feeding her is becoming increasingly difficult.

Her feeds are reducing to 4 bottles of only 2-4ozs. She's not gaining as much weight as needed and suffers terribly with pains wind, crying etc. She is dropping centiles!

She is very developed. GP noted this as she can sit up, on her own. She does reach for our food and has almost eaten one of her brothers sandwiches but I stopped her. I have given her cold carrots, celery etc to chew to help her teeth and she loves it.

I know the guidelines say not to until 26 weeks. Her brother had terrible colic and I weaned him at 4 months. His colic went and he loved his food.

Any advice or experience?

[CrazyOldCatLady]

Honestly, I'd bet money you've had two silent refluxers and it's not colic at all. Feeding problems are not normally a colic thing.

[duende]

I agree with Crazy. Sounds like reflux, not colic.
What made your GP "diagnose" colic??

[cupcake78]

Don't know. I told him what is happening, he checked her over and said its colic.

She's not got problems getting wind up but as the day goes on gets more fussy and ends up full of wind that has to go through her and screams in pain as a result.

The last week she has been very fussy, tired and screamy

I'm trying to ignore it and just carry on but mentally it's wearing me down!

[cupcake78]

I've just checked the symptoms of silent reflux. She doesn't wake up much at night. She doesn't comfort feed . She does posset but usually with wind and not all the time.

She isn't gaining enough weight. She doesn't tend to cry after a feed unless she has wind. She can be fussy over taking her bottle but I think teeth and generally noseyness interfere.

Her crying gets worse as the day goes on.

She basically just isn't interested in food and as the day goes on, so the more food her body takes the worse the crying and wind etc get.

[CrazyOldCatLady]

Mine both had reflux; DS very severely.

Crying at night was an issue with DD; DS slept through nearly every night for the first 6 months.

Neither of them comfort fed. DS actually had to be tube fed for the first month because he wouldn't feed at all, and force fed from a bottle for another 7 months. He didn't take a bottle willingly till he was 8 months. He'd spit out the teat, spit out the milk, cry and wriggle and generally fight us. It got to the stage where he cried at the sight of a bottle.

Every baby is different!

Crying can actually cause wind so your cause and effect may be backwards there.

I'm not saying it's definitely reflux but from everything I've read (and I've read far more than I've wanted to about reflux in the last 3 years!) it's a lot more common than you'd think.

As a simple test, I'd probably try thickening her feed with Cow & Gate Carobel, which should make an immediate difference if it is reflux. It's cheap, easy to use, and available over the counter. It's not always enough to make a refluxer comfortable but we found that even DS was happier to take a thickened feed (he also liked his formula piping hot rather than warm, but that's another story!).

[IndigoTea]

It sounds like silent reflux to me too. My peadetrician also said colic but was proved wrong after two weeks of medication which changed my baby into a different baby altogether!