Colic ??

[myersthecat]

I'm a little confused about colic. Last time babe decided to go on a nipple suck fest I was told it was probably a growth spurt. Sunday I had her sucking me dry (to the point of completely bruised boobies on the inside). When I mentioned this to the health visitor yesterday she said it was probably colic causing it and recommended I give her some infacol. I'm just about managing to continue breast feeding and it has settled down 'normal feeding' I think. As she is my first babe and she's only 15 days old, I am worried about her not eating enough. I guess time will tell.
Colic isn't what I imagined, she just seemed to be hungry all the time. Is this other peoples experience ?

In my experience colic is trouble getting up wind that has resulted in both of my ds's suffering terrible crying and discomfort in the evening until 14 weeks with ds1 and 9 weeks with ds2 after two sessions at the cranial osteopath. The reason they eat all the time is an instinct to stop the pain. Infacol helps to bind the wind bubbles together to bring them up. If your baby is burping ok then it is unlikely to be colic. Excessive feeding may just be still establishing the source of food as she is still so young - survival instinct. Hope it sorts out soon

Myers - how often do you feed her during the day ?
She is a bit young for colic (usually from 3 weeks onwards) but still....

It doesn't seem to be that regular, although she is definitely a lot better for using the infacol.
She still varies on how much she eats during the day, normally a spate in the morning from 6/7 am feeding at least 4 boobs before sleeping at about 9/10 ish. Then again midday/1ish for two boobs and again around 2/3 ish. So reasonably regular. Things go out of pan around 6-8 ish feeding again up to 4 boobs and then settling to every couple of hours in the night, either 1/2 boobs.

The frenzy was constant feeding for 6-8 hours without being able to settle her in between.
Allowing her about 30 mins per boob (guaging how frequently she was sucking/swallowing - longer if she was sleeping on it but trying to take her off in this instance).

Last week she put on 10 oz, so I guess feeding is pretty reasonable. Health visitor comes tomorrow, not sure if she'll weigh her or not. I guess time will tell.

Fingers crossed it's all part of the settling in process.

myersthecat, my ds, now 11wks, also had coic from his second week. We had ALOT of sucking and a medium amount of v. bad crying. I read on another site that the sucking helps digestion and as colic is the tightening of the stomach and bowel muscles (they rarely relax) the sucking helps alleviate this and the crying is one you come to recognise, one that sounds like they're in pain, usually accompanied by v. red face, and sometimes "pushing" effort to do bottom burps or poops.

We're still using infacol as it seems to come back if its stopped for a few days. Plus we found missing one or two doses also brought back the symptoms and took a day to build up again. Double doses all round.

We tried a dummy in the early days just for something to suck, but he stopped taking it after a week and moved onto his hand. He still uses his thumb and index finger (both at the same time!!) for comfort. It was hard to differentiate between a colic hand suck and a hungry hand suck. But I ended up thinking as he'd had 20mins on each side he should be pretty full and took the post-hand sucking or the sucking that started an hour after the feed as a colic suck. I then only fed him after 2.5-3hrs (their tummys take an hour or so to empty so you could aggrevate the situation by feeding again before the last feed's been digested.

I'll see if I can find those colic links I found helpful..
Hang in there...

Here are a few:

www.slumbersounds.com/baby-crying-info.htm
imaternity.com/Advice/postpartum/breastfeeding/article1.asp
www.colichelp.com/colicandbreastfeeding.html
www.babycenter.com/expert/baby/newborns/3160.html
www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/babycolic.htm

I just took what I wanted from the sites. I haven't found the one about the sucking/digestion though!

Hope they give you some ideas