Does this sound like milk intolerance or something else?? OR just a grumpy baby??

[christmastreebow]

Hi I am losing my mind once again. DS is 3 weeks old and is seriously never awake and content which makes me feel so sad. DD was the same when she was a baby for the first 18 months and all the health visitors and GPs kept brushing it under the carpet and kept saying some babies are just hard work etc etc.

DS is constantly gassy no matter how much we burp him. He burps fine usually but will be straining and grunting constantly and passing wind no joke all the time. He cries and screams all day long. Wakes frequently and is extremely hard to get back to sleep because he is grunting and farting endlessly. He is never happy for more than a few seconds and nothing I do seems to soothe him. He was badly constipated and has been prescribed lactalose to loosen the stools which seems to have worked and he now poos once a day.

He is breast fed (I express usually now as he was terrible on the boob) but even now stuggles when he feeds and seems to be in pain sometimes pulling off the bottle and crying whilst pulling his legs up. It was just such hard work last time and the thought of another year or more of this while he grows out of it is killing me. I really wanted to enjoy it this time.

Please can someone explain to me what is going on?

Farting is caused by digestion issues so no amount of burping is going to make a difference.

Have you posted in breast and bottle feeding? Lots of knowledgable people there. Only thing I can think of is reflux? (Or, yes difficult baby, we had one of those, screamed and cried a lot I think he just needed to let it all out - sorry not much help).

Aw, poor mite, sounds tough.

It might be worth also posting this in Breast/bottle feeding - there are a number of people on there quite expert about this sort of thing.

This sounds EXACTLY like my DS-in fact I could've been posting this 11 months ago! DS turned out to have a milk allergy (diagnosed at 6 months believe it or not-waited 5 months for the referral to come through!). Breastfed all the way to 6 months (horrendous hideous time as he'd wake all the time grunting and straining all night) where doc prescribed aptamil pepti (only available on prescription) and told me to stop bfing. I decided to continue but cut out all dairy in my diet (making sure I was taking mutivitamins) and gave him 1 bottle of Pepti for his nightfeed. He's a totally different baby now. All grunting and straining stopped. Quick tip-when he's making those noises, record it on your phone and play it to your midwife/GP/Paediatrician.

It could be similar to my daughter, she had farts and pain all the time, especially 1 or 2 hrs after BF, tummy was very hard and she was never happy. Eventually discovered she was not breaking down the lactose in milk. She got better when we started her on lactose-free formula after 5 or so months, I think it was called H.A. formula. She is now 5 yrs old and perfectly fine with all milk now btw even after being such an unhappy wee thing.