5 month old with bad gas and bowel movements!

[Ineedcake]

Hi - this is my first post so hopefully this is in the right place!

Just after some ideas/reassurance really. My 5mo son has always suffered from bad wind/gas/straining when pooing. It often keeps him (and us) up in the night as he's straining, and in the day he can be quite sick a while after feeding. He's exhausted today!

We've tried tummy massage, trying to pinpoint things I'm eating (he's breastfed) and even cranial osteopathy (we paid for 4 sessions and it seemed to help a little bit at the time, but we just can't afford to keep paying for it when we're not really sure it's doing much).

Recently it's got bad again, but he has had a cold a few weeks ago so I'm not sure if that has upset his tummy. The thing is when he does finally do a poo it's fine - right colour/consistency etc.

My mum says it's just one of those things that babies can struggle with. I keep thinking "he'll grow out of it soon"...will he?!

Oh, we also think he might be getting some teething pain too at the moment, so not sure if that's related?!

TIA :)

Hi there, you might want to check if he is intolerant to casein (milk protein). My son had problems with bowel movements etc. when he was a baby right up til around 2yrs. He was on a casein-free diet for a year or more and can now eat cheese, yoghurts etc again. Your GP may recommend a nutritionist or you could find one yourself.

Thanks both, will take him to the doc. Think I just wanted to hear it was something to keep trying to figure out and not just 'one of those things' to put up with. :)

My DD had this - only pooed once a week as a baby and had terrible wind. Also breastfed. She grew out of it.

DS is 5 months and did this. He is milk protein intolerant. I'm breastfeeding to I've cut all dairy and soy out of my diet and he is loads better. If you're bottle feeding and he has it you can get hydrolysed protein formula on prescription.

thinkingkindly - what age did your DD grow out of it?

Had a terrible day yesterday and today doesn't look promising :( He's straining so much poor little love. Have just given him a bath and he seemed to like the warm water. Need to try and get him to sleep some more now!

Going to get a doctors appointment for next week and in the meantime cut out dairy to see what happens!

It's quit normal for BF babies to go days inbetween pooing. Some will go upto 10days or more. So infequency of poo isn't a problem espicaly if the poo is still runny and mustard in colour.

So it may just be a wind problem, have you tried anything link infercol?

That's the thing MigGril - he's still pooing once a day (at least)!

A few weeks ago I thought he'd grown out of the grunting and straining, or was certainly a lot better, but this past week it's come back with a vengeance and seems to be causing him real discomfort. But I think it's the gas rather than the poo itself iyswim.

I can't help but think it's something I'm doing/eating that's causing it.

We tried infacol for quite a while when he was younger but although that helped him burp it seemed to make things worse 'the other end'.

Not something so simple then, just a note on cutting out dairy it can take upto a month for it to make any difference.

So you'll need to stick at it quit some time before you'll notice any differnce

Thanks again for the replies and advice re. cutting out dairy.

Going to stick with it for a while, especially as there's already been a huge difference in the last two days since I've cut it out! He's already much happier, not as much wind and sleeping better - could be a coincidence I guess but it's looking promising. At least I can go to the doc then and say I think it's that.

Kind of hoped it wouldn't be dairy that's the problem though, I love it, especially cheese!