grumpy, farty baby

[Jazmyn]

My DS is now 3 weeks old, we had a lot of problems getting him to bf at all in the first couple of weeks but he's finally caught on but in the past few days he's gotten really grouchy and crys A LOT! Its quite intense crying and he pulls up his legs too and farts quite dramatically at least once every 30 mins. We have plenty of pooie nappies and he's growing well but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions?

I'm currently trying to reduce my milk supply as I was over pumping for the first 2 weeks (on "professional" advice) so I'm also block feeding atm. Does this sound like an over production problem to you, ie too much foremilk?

3/5 times I go to feed him he also gets really fussy about latching on, pulling away and screaming his heart out.... sometimes it takes 45 mins to get him to feed, it's very distressing but I'm desperately trying not to go back to the syringe feeding! 45 mins to get him to feed plus a 5 to 15 min actual feeding session every 2 hours throughout day and night is wearing us all down!

Maybe he doesn't want to feed every 2 hours?

Possible but he does all the classic "I'm hungry" moves and when he finally does latch on he sucks like a vaccum cleaner! He also wont settle again until he's fed and continues to cry no matter what we do.

I have had two windy babies and IME windy babies tend to benefit from being put on their tummy's as much as possible,
then when they wriggle around it gets the wind moving, if you are not comfortable putting them on the floor you could lie them across your lap

also massage their tummy when they seem to be in pain, this will also help the wind to get moving.

You could try a dummy as this helps to make them salivate more which can calm an acid tummy.

My problem was always that I had very fast flowing milk right from the beginning and they tended to gulp air at the same time as trying to get the milk when they latched on

DD was a windy little thing until about 15 weeks when it just vanished. We attacked both the symptoms and what I think was the cause, my very fast let down.

We let her roll around naked as much as possible and cycled her legs to try and help clear the wind. We tried dentinox, gripe water and another wind relief, they didn't make much difference. We did lots of baby massage, especially after her bath. I'll be honest, nothing really helped apart from making us feel as if we were doing something to help her

From a feeding perspective I used to get to the let down point and then let it spray into a muslin so that by the time DD got it it was just flowing nicely. There is some helpful advice about taming a fast let down on Kellymom but I have to say that I have never really mastered it and still get spray every time I feed - and DD is 6 months so you'd think I'd have it sorted by now !!!

And I had the same latching problem with DD as you - the fast flow of milk was just too much for her and she had to keep coming off just to breathe.
Here's the link I mentioned
www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/fast-letdown.html

and just to add that I now feed lying down in bed as per her suggestion

I kind of do agree with Morloth a bit there.
DS2 is 6 weeks old and I still do have times where he seems hungry but it takes so long to latch him on and when I finally do he goes like the clappers feeding but I have discovered he does seem to be wanting to suck but not particularly hungry so often DH if he is around will take him off my hands for a bit and if he really won't settle I try feeding again but often he does settle for a while and when he starts rooting again will generally feed ok.

It is not a popular choice often but I have given ds a dummy don't use it all the time just occasionally and he will have a wee suck but will not entertain the idea if he is actually hungry and looking for milk.