colic, wind, reflux & hernia combo. advice!

[kitty1989]

Hiya,
Our ebf DD is almost 11 weeks old & is constantly squirming, unsettled & crying thanks to a lovely mix of reflux, colic and wind along with a golf ball sized hernia. Over the past few days she seems even more unsettled (I didn't think this was possible!) especially when feeding as I think she's uncomfortable with the hernia pressing on me. We have tried so much to help relieve her pain/discomfort, we regularly push her hernia in to push the trapped gas along, she has dentinox, frequent windings, massaging her tummy as best we can & cycling her legs. She doesn't sleep much in the day as when she drops off she is inevitability woken by gas pain a short time later.

I know really that the only thing will help is time for her digestive system to mature, I was just wondering if anyone else in this situation has any advice?!

Thanks

Also she doesn't have any tummy time on the floor at all due to her screaming from day 1 at being put down. She is very strong in the legs - has been trying to 'stand' since word go. She is also able to hold head up when upright & push off with arms. Is not having tummy time likely to hinder her development?

DS was pretty much the same, although without the hernia (poor you, what a horrific combo). He wouldn't sleep during the day, slept for bursts of 45m-90m at night, all because his reflux and wind made him so unbelievably uncomfortable. The pain in his wee face when he was trying to pass wind/poo or vomit was just awful.

Like your DD, he was upright from the word go and was walking-with support-from 4 months. The one thing everyone has always said is "he's an alert wee thing, isn't he?"

He categorically refused to even entertain tummy time. What we ended up doing was leaning him over the arms of the sofa and entertaining him while he was upright; our HV said that as long as he's not on his back and has the opportunity to use his arms and legs, then it counts!

We ended up just waiting it out with the wind issue-nothing else that could be done and we found that dentinox and the other one (orange flavoured) made his reflex worse as they were quite acidic.

Weaning early (DS at 14 weeks on advice of GP as he was a milk refuser) helped a lot. Things really started to settle down when he got to 8 months and started walking.

Hang in there and get as much help as possible-no one will ever understand just how draining a reflux/colic/windy baby is.

We also had short term success with ranitidine for his reflux , but had to move onto the really strong stuff when that stopped working.

Thanks for the advice, especially about the sofa arm! Will definitely try that.

I'm going to give infacol a try as I don't
dentinox is having any effect anymore. At the 8wk check up the doctor said she would write to the paediatric team at hosp about the hernia due to the discomfort she saw & the size of it, but stated that it wasn't a referral & that with umbilical hernias they only operate at 5y.o for cosmetic reasons as they go by themselves.

I genuinely think that the hernia is making the gas/colic worse, might just have to go badger the docs some more. It is heartbreaking to see her in pain all the time.
It makes the smiles all the more worthwhile

We didn't get any smiles until DS was 5 months old as it had taken us that long to get a consultant referral for his reflux. Once we started on omeprazole (sp!) and an anti sickness med as he'd trained himself to be sick, we had a different baby. His first pain-free smile was the best day ever.

Infacol is the orange flavoured medicine for gas. We used bottles of it (DS took forever to wind) but we were told by the consultant that, while it helped solve the wind issue, it made the reflux so much as it was so acidic. You just can't win!

Good luck with the GP; it took multiple appointments and multiple GPs for me to get the ball rolling. In their minds, as long as they're gaining weight there can't be anything wrong. It's so, so frustrating.