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?

have you tried cutting out dairy? it doesnt sound as if it would make you any more miserable...dd2 is 6 weeks, and at about 3 weeks starting farting like crazy, also constipated (only pooing every other day), so that is a red flag for me in a bf baby. DP cut out all dairy (you will need to check packets carefully - e.. bread) and be very strict at first, and it realy helped - poo back to normal, average fartiness. It won't harm him to give it a go

how's his weight?

His weight is fine. He is gaining well which I know is a sign that there isn't any intolerance but I can't help but feel that this much misery and crying constantlly isn't normal. I am so down about it. I so wanted to enjoy motherhood this time round and I feel like I have failed and I am just wishing this next year away again just like I did last time. It was a bloody long year too and even then things were still tough. What the hell is worng? Why are my babies like this?

:( gosh....something's going on for sure.

Constipation? Really? That is so unusual in a young solely bf baby, it's worth asking a bit more about it. I have hardly ever come across a baby so young being prescribed lactulose...are you in the UK?

Has anyone checked his gut out properly?

And yes, crucially, what has his weight been like?

We X posted.

I see his weight is ok - can you give details?

Has anyone who knows what to look for closely observed a whole feed?

The straining and grunting and farting could well be normal.

The screaming and crying is not.

What is he like if he is next to you, skin to skin, just chillin'? What is he like if he lies on you in the bath?

What happened with your previous baby?

My DD is 5 weeks old and suffered from wind & constipation from a couple of weeks. She was combi fed so we moved to aptimil comfort and changed her bottles to dr browns. Perhaps try a different bottle? It helped my DD.
She also had silent reflux that we're not taking medication for.
All of these changes have helped her to become a happier baby (still won't sleep at night though!)

thanks for the replies everyone. with my firs child they eventually grew out of it around 18 months and she is now a wonderful 5 yo so i know there is light at the end of the tunnel.i tried everything last time hv and gp said nothing wrong so even tried cranial osteopathy which did nothing. it's just hard to feel this way again when i so wanted to enjoy my baby this time.

if he is on me skin to skin it makes no difference still he cries. i just feel like i can't comfort him which is heart breaking. dd was the same except for holding her upright asnd walking around with her would often calm her but i could never stop moving. bizzarely at night she did sleep at night unlike ds. i just feel very helpless and such a crap mum to have had both my babies be so so unhappy.

OP so sorry to hear about this. I would def try cutting out dairy and soya from your diet for two weeks. My DD is cows milk protein intolerant and symptoms sound similar. Babies with cmpi are often intolerant to soya too as proteins very similar. It takes at least two weeks for proteins to leave the body so you will need to give it that long to see if it helps. Ladies on allergy board can offer more advice on dairy substitutes. I couldn't bf and so switched dd to a hypoallergenic formula so can't help too much there unfortunately.

Sorry to hear your LO is suffering. There is a reflux support thread (sorry can't link as on iPhone) - some reflux caused by cmpi. DCs normally outgrow cmpi by 1-2 years, might explain your DD...... Good luck

Oh btw my DD never lost any weight and maintained 75-91st centile despite her cmpi and struggling to feed!

I don't think I can help much but my first son was lactose intolerant and a right unhappy man for the first 12 weeks when I was breast feeding, then breast feeding, topping up with formula, then just formula. He put on weight throughout the first 3 months so the health visitor said their was no problem. She eventually said she would refer me to a nutritionalist once I'd tried every formula on the market. Tried the lactose-free one and I got a new baby. 4 days before I went back to work, but hey.

So when I was expecting my second I cut out dairy and everything that might have had lactose in my diet. The midwives were unable to tell me if this would have any effect. And of course I have no idea if it had any effect as baby number two was a happy baby from the very beginning.

It is my biggest great that I didn't try and get help earlier as it ruined my time off with first son so I completely understand how upsetting it is (two years later I came off the prozac!). I'm sorry I haven't got any suggestions other than carry on fighting your corner - I wish I had.

Sympathies, sympathies, sympathies. I have a five-month-old DS, who has been colicky/silent reflux/milk and soy allergic, and only in the past few weeks has his constant fussing started to diminish. His early weeks, he literally had an hour of contentment in the morning and that was it. I've cut out all dairy and soy, plus we're holding out with his next round of vaccines, as things got a million times worse after the first set.

You don't say whether you tried elevating him a bit at night? And have you tried a sling? It did not work for my son, but in the past month he's started to love his carrier. Still the world's worst napper, still fussier than the average babe, but thank god he sleeps at night, now that his reflux is better.

Like you, I too feel cheated. The newborn stage was nothing short of torture and "triage", as my husband liked to say.

Have you tried colief? Your baby sounds like mine, but after putting her on colief it was like having a different baby! Much more content

My DD was also like this. She grew out of it earlier than your DD - about 8 months - but I am preg again and very worried about a repeat performance so am watching for good advice with interest! In the meantime, I really, really sympathise with you. I think I had PTSD from our 8 months of screaming hell, and the inability of anyone to explain made it all the harder.

I had EXACTLY the same experience as stopgap.
My dd is also now 5 months and she does have a severe cows milk and soya intolerance. I now can't eat any trace of these things but it has helped so, so much.
In addition to the screaming in pain mine was also vomiting 50+ times every day so eventually was medicated for her reflux after a hospital stay where someone finally took notice (3 months).
It can't hurt to try the elimination diet as it may help. With us it took a month for a proper improvement so it isn't a quick fix but well worth trying.
You are certainly not alone and it really is horrendous. I stopped taking her out in the end as she just screamed and screamed and I didn't know what was wrong. She would never take a dummy either-far too distressed.
Things calmed a tiny bit at night at about 9 weeks when she found her thumb so could comfort herself somewhat.
In terms of sleeping, my dd would never sleep on her back. She was only ever able to on her front, sort of lying in the recovery position, it took the pressure off her painful tummy. I realise this is against current guidelines but it saved us, something you could try if you wanted?

There is hope. it will get easier. Now, at 5 months she has improved so, so much. She only cries now when she's tired it's been weeks since I've heard her pain cry.
I have also lost all baby weight from not eating dairy :)

Hang in there you're doing good

Is it unusual to have had two babies with lactose intolerance? I am just curious...

No it's not unusual. I was just talking to a colleague and both hers are lactose intolerant. I think allergies is proven to run in the family isn't it?

both dds here don't tolerate dairy, and my mother thinks i had this too. really worth trying cutting out dairy, i would say: even though black tea is gak, it's better than a screaming baby.

oh, and dd2's weight gain has been perfect, but she was still constipated and rancidly gassy and screaming in pain until the dairy made its way out of my breast milk.

I sympathise. ds2 was put on prescription formula from about 14 weeks for constant unhappiness/screaming/refusing to feed. Unfortunately it made not a scrap of difference. He is 18 months now and much better, but still a very screamy boy with a very short fuse.

Absolutely no help to you, I'm sorry, but I found MN a godsend when trying to deal with it. I know all too well the 'crap mum' feelings but it isn't true - you are in no way to blame for it. Get all the supprt you can and rest whenever you can too - the world always seems a tougher place when you're tired :)

I have just one more question and then I promise to bugger off and stop selfishly asking irrelevant questions: how likely is it that a baby would grow out of lactose intolerance, and how quickly? I ask because, when weaning, cheese, etc, had no obvious effect on DD. Which made me think it couldn't have been that in the first place. But maybe I am wrong.

OP :( :( :(. been there and done that with both my babies.

Inability to digest lactose in babies is very very rare and is associated with failure to thrive; it can also follow some bugs and infections but usually passes as the gut recovers and begins to make lactase again.

Cow's milk/ soy protein intolerance (MSPI) is much more common. My babies have had both MSPI and one had reflux on top of that too (along with generalised hypotonia), and it can make them absolutely miserable. DS, for example, screamed for a good part of the day and was only really happy when extreme distraction was used (think bouncing/ singing/ patting at the same time, all day loooooooooooooooooong).

MSPI is often grown out of by the age of 5. I think congenital lactose intolerance is a life-long condition but am not medically qualified; additionally, it can develop in childhood and adulthood, too.

Sorry for hijack but STOPGAP if you come back I have replied on your vaccination thread

Also......if a bf baby is lactose intolerant (very, very rare from birth; more common as a temp condition after bad gastro infection) cutting out dairy in the mother makes no difference at all. The lactose is in the milk whatever; lactose in the mother's diet does not go anywhere near the milk.

CMP allergy is a different matter.

So for a CMP allergy it is worth cutting dairy out of your diet?

flowerface, yes, it appears so....but it's not an easy thing to do.

christmastreebow my dc4 (ds2) sounds very similar to yours. He is now 6m but from birth was enormously windy and troubled. He didn't have constipation (quite the opposite!) but had lots of problems. He had prolonged jaundice and a TT snip but even then he wasn't putting on weight with BM. I knew at that stage (having seen it in my other dc) that he was heading down the reflux path. We changed to ff at 7weeks and his symptoms ramped up.

At 3m he was changed to Nutramigen AA which is a dairy free (effectively) formula and things improved a bit.

At 4m he had a type 1 reaction to apples and pears and then two weeks later had another to standard formula. We're now awaiting skin prick testing to see what if anything else he's allergic to. Wheat is a little suspect but as it was a delayed reaction it could be intolerance rather than allergy. Thankfully soya is ok so I can use that in cooking!

He is still very windy (at 6m still requires winding like a newborn and can't self burp AT ALL) but we're getting there.

I guess the point of all this is that symptoms can come and go and worsen or improve. Keep a diary of everything you eat and drink - def cut out dairy and soya to see if that helps. Keeping a diary makes you really focus and helps you to remember and make associations. Without it time can narrow and distort things and you can end up coming to conclusions which are totally erroneous.

Finally, if you find that there is an improvement when you cut things out, ask your gp to refer you to a children's allergy clinic. If you have any trouble with this then go to the Blossom webpage - that's Allergy UK's website for children's allergies as they can be very different from adults. There's a helpline there where they can give you the nearest children's clinic.

Good luck!