Miserable newborn

[hyub]

I'm just feeling completely broken by my 5 week old. For the last 3 weeks he has become gradually more fussy to the stage where he is basically always whinging or screaming if awake.

I feel like I can't keep going on like this, I am physically tired but emotionally wrecked from his crying/trauma.

(He is formula fed. Has symptoms of reflux and an eczema type rash on his face which makes me suspicious of CMPA. GP only given gaviscon so far which is doing sweet FA).

I just need to hear stories about it getting better, please?

Thank you

A story about it getting better:
I don't have any experience of medical issues but DD was a very unhappy baby from about two weeks onwards. We did query it with the doctor and health visitor but told all was normal (not sure if just being fobbed off) but anyway!
Point I'm going on to make is that she gradually got better over time. There wasn't a certain age I can pinpoint to say it changed, it was definitely gradual. She is now ten months old and is a completely different baby.
From two weeks she would cry and whinge pretty much all the time. You could not put her down in the day whatsoever, she lived in a wrap for about 4 weeks as wouldn't tolerate anything else. Luckily she wasn't too bad at night time but the days were just hours of pure misery for everyone. Couldn't take her out anywhere in the pushchair as she would just shout until picked up. I was so envious of newborn babies sleeping or lying quietly in their prams and wondered what on earth I was doing wrong.
Now she is only miserable when tired and is usually full of smiles and laughter. The more skills and independence she gains the happier she has become. She still only contact naps but that's more because we haven't really worked on breaking that habit yet, but she will sit in her pushchair and you can take her to restaurants!
I genuinely thought I had birthed the grumpiest child in existence and even returned to work early because I really struggled with it. Now all of a sudden I've got the complete opposite and could never have imagined it at the time!

OP it will take days to see an improvement. Poor little sausage.

Can you show us a picture of the rash?

The other side is more scaley and obviously eczema-y

This makes me so mad. I’ve sent you a pm with some useful info

• comfort milk will not help it still contains dairy.
• The nhs always used to prescribe for trials and still does in many areas (see my pm)
• absolute nonsense. Failure to thrive is not the only symptom of cmpa in fact many do still put on weight. Mine did but projectile vomit (like the exorcist) every feed and explosive (whole change and clothes thrown out) nappies every nappy are certainly not normal either.
• this one annoys me so much! I had a gp who had no kids tell me this! I also knew that as my cmpa one mine was my second. She also slept at night but never more than 20 mins in the day from week 2 until she got the right milk.
• yes they do and many children thrive on them.
• yes they are but like everyone else in the U.K. a baby in entitled to adequate healthcare provisions. It’s the companies that provide them then that should help reduce the costs not the patients who need them.

sorry got on a rant there! Just annoyed on your behalf that almost 10 years later the same things are being trotted out by ill informed GPs.

hopefully it will settle in a day or two once milk begins to get in their system.

Oh sweet boy, his hair is gorgeous.
what are his poos like, does he ever have mucous or blood in them? Do they ever smell acidic?

No. Poos are losish green with bits in. No noticeable mucus or blood

Oh bless him. From personal experience and friend’s babies who were diagnosed with CMPA I’d be fairly certain that’s what’s causing it. He has absolutely classic symptoms of silent reflux from screaming and being unsettled and the rash and dodgy poo scream intolerance to me. Can you get dairy free milk without a prescription?
In the meanwhile feed him slowly. Burp several times during the one bottle. If he’ll take a dummy give it him after the feed as the sucking helps to keep it down. Keep him upright as much as possible (I know that’s not easy with a newborn!) and prop the head end of his cot or crib up (a couple of big books or similar will do).

Do you mean a full amino acid one? I could get some but I doubt they would then continue to prescribe it unless there had been a proper trial on the hydrolysed stuff. And I couldn't afford to fund the amino acid stuff long term

I honestly don’t know what’s out there on the market these days. The kids used to get Neocate on prescription but they’re all in their teens now so what’s available on the open market might have moved on.

Thought I would reply because I was in your position a few months ago. My newborn was so miserable always crying if she wasn't sleeping,even then she would only want to sleep on me and spend the evening crying for hours and then waking every two hours. I was sleep deprived, depressed and it was so awful. She has reflux and had it then too, she has been medication for it from about 4 weeks.

She is on gaviscon. Omeprazole did not hepllp. Switched to aptamil comfort ( partially hydrolysed) which helped as its thicker and doesn't come up so easy. Found the prescription milk the doctors gave too thin and she would vomit it out constantly.

There is light. Once she turned 11 weeks she started to settle, the constant crying stopped
More smiles andmore calm, still contact napped and co slept. Now she is 5 months she is the happiest baby. You wouldn't believe it's the same baby. When I was going through the worst of it everyone said just wait till she's 3 months she'll get better, I couldn't believe it then but it is true honestly. The 5/6 week mark was the worst. I was so low and struggling so bad. I'm here to say it does get better I promise. It's hard to believe now but it will.

If the gp is reluctant to give the fully hydrolysed milk try the aptamil comfort you can buy it from the supermarket. It might help with the burning reflux as the milk is thicker esp with gaviscon added. Also gaviscon did constipate my baby so she had lactulose up til about 11 weeks and then it sorted it self out.

This sounds just like my baby with cmpa. He was breastfed and topped up with bottles but terrible eczema, stuffly nose, and absolutely foul smelling, mucous nappies. He was my 3rd, and that's the only reason I knew something was off. Never had nappies like it.

Aptimil pepti was prescribed and within days he was better.

I'm just wondering if you swaddle him? I really found that helped when my son was really agitated.

It takes around 2 week when I spoke to the doctor.

Also bear in mind with the nutrigem as it's thinner than normal formula it might burn as it comes up easier and he may be crying fussing more. We tried aptamil pepti and nutrigem and both were to thin. The comfort was actually much better as its thicker and I added gaviscon to it.

Hi OP

Well done for standing your ground with GP.

DS1 was lactose intolerant as a baby (almost 14 now) I had to plead with HV and GP to try lactose free milk, it wasn't as readily available to buy back then. I'm not exaggerating when I say he screamed 90% of the day and never slept more than an hour at a time. He was 5 months when I was finally listened to and given a prescription for nutramigen. Within 3 days he was a different baby. GP wanted to revert back to normal formula for a week 'just to be sure' I outright refused. As a mum you have instinct and know what's best for your baby. He grew out of it by 15 months.

Hope it works for you OP.

This gives me so much hope- he has cried so much today I have verged on a&e. I don't really know what for, to make sure I'm not missing something I guess.
I'm sorry you went through it too xx

My (usually optimistic) DH has cracked today bless him.
It's going to be a long weekend in our house 😭

It's really tough but it will get better. Some things I found helped:

Swaddling
Elevated when lying down
Lots of shushing
Lots of swaying
Car journeys for naps
A sling
Getting outside in the pram

And any help you can get, from parents friends etc who can watch baby for a little just so you don't lose your mind, even if you just go to another room for an hour. It really will get better, even though it feels all consuming and relentless, they are babies for such a short time really.

Thank you
He hates the car seat and the pram. He loves the sling (but only for proper walks outside) so I've been taking him out in that several times a day.

I'm so glad someone posted this in a good way. I was trying to write something but was so raging for OP and her baby couldn't put it in to a correct way.
This is 100%. Dontnlet the GP fob you off.
It may be the area, not sure where you are OP, I'm in Scotland and my trust would never allow this.

It took about 48 hours on aptamil pepti 1 for my boy to show an improvement, the way we seen that was in his legs relaxing, nappies and slept in the day ( like a deep proper sleep). The rest over a few weeks. The crying between 6-10pm was still happening but it was not due to the allergy, just his witching hour. We call ot his shouting time where he now cluster feeds but within 3 weeks of being on the aptamil pepti, baby was sleeping 8 hours in the night.

It's hard but please look after yourself too, you will sort this out and have a happier baby soon, stuck to your instincts 💜

Thanks @Peach0123
Ok, I'm counting down 48 hours (not to hold you to it,'or anything 😂😂)

After a thread of miserableness from me, I wanted to share that 20 hours into nutramigen the rash/eczema on his face has quite literally disappeared. The pic I shared didn't even capture how angry it looked, and it's been progressively getting worse over the last 3 weeks.

Feeling hopeful that I'm on the right path and he will feel better soon.

Will keep updating incase this thread helps anyone in the future (Lord knows I've been going through the old CMPA threads on here!)

Thanks again for the support x

My babies ( thankfully ) never had this , and I'm well past the baby stage ( again thankfully.
But just wanted to say , I feel the pain for you and your husband and sympathise.
You have a baby with the idea of a perfect little family set up , and a rosy opinion of a contented baby. When that doesn't happen you can feel it's down to something you've done / or not done.
The point of my thread , is it's 100% not , you are a caring mum who just wants what's best for her baby , times are hard now , it as others have said it doesn't last . In a month's you will look back and realise those times are behind you.

It’s terrible the lack of support.

So glad he’s getting better. My boys skin looked like that on Gaviscon, and he didn’t have CMPA. But whilst things are improving just keep on with what’s working for the moment. Try to keep on gaining these wins. I would remove as many things as possible - Gaviscon, lacutlose etc. Then just start again in a week. Try one bottle of dairy and see if things go down hill.

With the formula I wouldn’t mess about with any pre prep fridge techniques or anything like that. Poor babe is obviously in a fragile state.

Get a Nuby rapid cool. When doing tiny mls it will cool in seconds.

Take the freshly boiled water. Add to the clean rapid cool. Add the powder instantly. Put the lid on and shake really hard. Tip upside down for a couple of seconds. The lid will show red, Amber or green. When green poor straight to a bottle and feed.

Also we used probiotics after the Gaviscon onslaught. Helped our boys poos return to normal. Where also a green sludgy mess. Labinic liquid is what’s used in neonatal and has good results in baby’s/ new borns.

Thank you, I think with nutramigen you can't add to boiling water though as kills the probiotics?

Thank you
If I knew in a month it would all be behind us I could cope, it's the unknowing that is difficult. I appreciate your message x

@hyub
My actual text should have read - A few month's , but a month obviously would be much better !🙂