4 week old 1st baby & general advice pls...

[Hopeful2]

I have a 4 week old baby boy & I just need some general advice - I started using infacol as DS was having problems with belly cramps (very frustrated & pulled legs up to belly, wouldn't settle), infacol doesn't seem to do anything. DP has now come home with coleaf & grpe water to try. I think DS has colic. It would seem to be every evening he cries & cries & cannot be calmed & then suddenly it goes. I have noticed that he is quite sicky recently also, sometimes he brings up milk a few hrs later which looks as though it has conjealed (I assume digested). I have read that coleaf is good for reducing lactose in the milk but it seems a pickle to actually do...I am breast feeding & to administer it I have to express some milk first, add a few drops of coleaf & then use a sterile spoon everytime. Try telling DS to wait until I am ready to do this before he can feed! DS has not quite got into a routine yet so I don't know when he's going to next need a feed.
Would gripe water be easier but will it work as well or is it just for wind rather than colic???
DS appears to pass wind a lot also, so I would have thought that this would have sorted his wind but clearly not, which makes me think it is more like colic.
Any advice would be great as I get so disheartened when I cannot do anything to calm baby.

hi Hopeful. these first weeks are so difficult! my DS is only 18 weeks old so it's still very fresh in my memory
there are different things you can try to help with DS's wind, different things help different babies.

• infacol and dentinox colic drops contain the same active ingredient and they are meant to help bring the wind up. infacol didn't work for us either!
• gripe water - again, supposed to make it easier to wind the baby. it seemed to help my DS a bit but afterwards it made him burp so violently that he'd be sick. (he's a sicky baby and has reflux so we certainly didn't need any more sickness!)
• colief works in a differnt way and will only help if your baby has difficulties digesting lactose, but like you say it is a PITA when you're breastfeeding
• try massaging his tummy and bringing his legs up to his tummy, it may help to get the wind out
• "tiger in the tree" position helps
• putting DS on his tummy across my lap also helped.

Nobody really knows what colic is - excessive, inconsolable crying which could be caused by imature digestive system, or immature nervous system. there are plenty of threads here on colic which loads of good advise. good luck!

Don't know if I can give much practical advice but just want to send you lots of sympathy. I had a nephew who was very like this but it does get better although I appreciate that is not much consolation when the walls are reverberating!

On my third and think that with all of them, the few hours before bedtime are always the hardest. Baby and you are tired and no matter what they say I think sometimes you just have to feed and feed and feed. Maybe try that rather than any gripe water, but also feel free to totally ignore the advice.

Good luck.

Sorry to read about your problems, i had a child with similar problems I was advised to use 'onion water' does the same job as infacol etc but is natural.

Slice a normal onion cover with boiling water and leave to cool, give a teeaspoon before a feed, bi uncoventional but it worked for my little one who used to scream for hours with colic. Good Luck and stick in there believe me although ti seems like the end of the world this time will soon pass and you little cherub will be at school!!!!

Once agian Good Luck

Maybe you could express once in the morning after feeding and keep that milk in the fridge to administer the colief. I think bm is fine for 24hours in the fridge, that way you don't have to express some each time?

It will only help if she is lactose intolerant though, and if it does helps go and see your GP and they can give you the colief on prescription.

Another thing to try is changing your diet, say leave out certain things for three days and see if it makes any diff, i.e. dairy, gassy veg like beans/sprouts, spicy stuff, caffine etc

We tried a cranial osteopath and things have now improved and 11 week old DS now seems to have lost his colic. I think the osteopath did help, but DS probably also 'grew out' of the colic too. It will pass, all these remedies and techniques are often just a way for us to cope with the screaming by feeling we are doing something. I know just how awful colic o'clock is, but it will just be a few short weeks before it will just be a dim and distant memory - stick with it!

holding my DS in my left arm tummy facing forward helped his tummy ache, his back against my chest so my left arm gently pressed against his tummy area.

hopeful, i just wanted to say that what he's doing sounds like normal newborn baby behaviour.

a lot of babies are colicky and cry in the evenings. it is hard to deal with, but it WILL pass.
blind tests have proven that gripe water and infacol do absolutely nothing to relieve symptoms

it's very, very hard if you have a baby that you can't calm, my second baby was like this and i got really quite depressed for a while.

have you tried:
feeding more frequently in the evenings? some babies like to cluster feed

wearing him in a sling

white noise=- you can get cd's that play womb noises and such-like. or just try having the hoover on.

swaddling him and rocking him

laying him across your arm (tummy down) and walking round with him

My DD1 was very much like this.
The most important thing, I found, was to try to spread out her feeds to 2.5 or 3 hours apart (or a bit more frequently in the evening). If she started snacking, she would eat every hour or so, have catnaps because she was hungry, become too tired to feed properly and snack some more. All of those snacks coupled with her exhaustion led to serious screaming in the evening and into the night. I am not really a fan of imposing a routine on babies, but I did find that reading the Babywhisperer book helped me tell the difference between tired, windy and hungry and therefore to space out her feeds.
I also found that putting her in the bath calmed her down - presumably it made her tummy feel better and if nothing else gave me 10 minutes respite from the howling.

Both of my babies have loved being swaddled and being carried along my arm tummy down. Holding them like this also enables you to pat on their bottoms like a heartbeat which they seemed to find calming.

The good news is that from about 6 weeks she started to get much better at bringing her wind up by herself, although continued to posset a lot until she was weaned (but I can live with a bit of mess, as long as there is no screaming).

best thing to get is some bifida bacterium infantis powder from a good health food shop. It comes in a powder, is perfectly safe for babies bit actually easier if you just have a spoonful yourself and baby will get it through your breast milk.

if you did give it to baby direct you would mix tiny bit with bit of breast milk but not worth the hassle imo.

I gave this to my baby. who was very similar

A few things to try:

I ex bfeed and put coleaf on my nipple as she was latching on or on a dummy in the middle of the feed

Keep calm you getting stressed will prolong the baby crying as they will see your reaction

if its a certain time of the day go for a walk, change nappy anything which may help either bring wind or get to sleep

cycling legs

singing and rocking

Dr karp technique is brill- there is a thread on the sight about it - its like baby voodoo

also remember this time does pass and in a couple of weeks he'll be smiling at you and more fun- don't feel guilty if you're not enjoying this time (I know I didn't but when my dd turned 8 weeks it was a different story)

I have transient lactose intolerance and one of my twins has this too. Colief was great relief for her as an infant, but it was a PITH to give.

I had a system for burping my 3 if you are interested. Sit him on your knee holding him under his arms and taking most of his weight, bounce a few times with small light bumps, tilt him at an angle to his left to generate a burp and repeat the whole thing for as long as seems appropriate.

The anatomy of your stomach often means that the exit for food and air is not at the top of your stomach, but is actually slightly to your left. Sometimes pockets of air can get trapped in the top of your stomach with no exit and cause griping pains - bouncing encourages all the small air bubbles to gather together into one larger air pocket and tilting to their left allows the air pocket to escape more easily.

BTW my other two also enjoyed cluster feeding in the early evening when the milk supply is lowest and they definitely settled better for it at night.

Anything's worth a try - I am sure you will be all sorted in no time at all.

Hi Hopeful, sending you much sympathy. A constantly crying baby can send the most together woman nearly over the edge!

Upset babies respond really well to skin to skin contact. So do upset mothers!

Unwrap your baby, take off your top, hold him close so he can feed as and when he wants to, wrap a blanket around your shoulders so you don't get chilly and concentrate on relaxing yourself. Even if he's screaming, the trick is to stop trying to stop him crying. Just breathe and relax. He will pick up on your more relaxed state.

He's still very little. Don't worry too much about routine for now. Just feed him when he seems interested.

Also, if at all possible, get someone to take over, even if only for a very short while every day so you can have a break. Take a bath, go for a walk, try to re-charge a bit.

Two of my three children were colicky and I can remember how hard it was, hang on in there. Sending you loads of moral support...

Thank u ladies, sorry it's taken me so long to reply. My days r just going into one & before I know another week has gone! Yes I have tried the bath, the sitting on my lap with my arm across belly & back against me. I've given up on the colief as it is too much hassle as once u BF u cannot keep a bottle with colief in it for more than 12 hrs rather than a normal bottle of BM which can stay in for 24 hrs. I'm seeing the HV tomorrow & I will be speaking to her for advice. Als got a GP appointment as it might also be that DS has reflux (so sicky all the time) & maybe they can prescribe something to help him. Also he has got such horrid spots on his neck, chin & a few on his face - doesn't help with the sick always going in these areas no matter how often I try & keep him clean.
Just so tiring always cleaning him & disheartening when after a lovely feed DS pukes what appears to me as the whole meal back up (I know it is not really the whole meal but it just feels like that).

Just came on here searching for similar advice (although my DS is formula fed). He seems to pick the middle of the night to be upset. He is my 2nd baby and I don't think my DD did this (as she was BF) so it feels all so disheartening.

Anyway, I'm trying infacol and all other ideas noted above, althought I appreciate I have the advantage of DH to help out.

Good luck to you - I'm feeling your pain!

PippaNnippa can u do that then with colief? I thought it had to go in some expressed milk before carrying on with BF? I didn't realise u could put it on your nipple half way through or his dummey...If u can do this is makes it a little easier, it was the 'having to express, place 4 drops in & then feed to baby either by spoon or syringe before BF' that I am finding hard to do especially in the night feeds or 1st feed of the day as a crying baby doesn't really understand that food will be coming u just have to wait.
Poor DS now has a nasty rash around his neck & face (a bit like baby acne). I'm convinced the milk that he seems to sick out isn't helping as it makes the neck wet - no matter how many times I try to clean him up. The doc has now given me some cream to try.
My family keep saying start bottle feeding it will make it easier for u, but I really wanted to keep breastfeeding for now...