Regarding green poo

[ThePetiteMummy]

Dd2 is now 8 weeks, and to be honest, bf has been a bit of a battle. She pulls on & off a lot, and in the first 3 weeks or so, she was vomiting vast amounts most days, due I think to oversupply. The vomiting has now stopped, thankfully, & she is gaining weight well, but her poo is constantly green, which I know is wrong (it has been yellow at times, but not recently). Can anyone advise how to rectify this? She's generally quite unsettled, doesn't like to be put down ever, & won't sleep much during the day, even in the pram. Dd1 was never like this, and we had no problems feeding, so this is new to me. She seems to want to feed every 2 hrs or so, but on the occasions she goes longer, she feeds much better. She will only sleep around 3 hrs at a time at night, which I know is normal for her age, but I feel if she would take a proper feed, the sleeping might improve. She only feeds for around 10 minutes at a time, & often less. She also usually only wants one side. She tends to gulp, and takes in a lot of air.

Sorry for the lack of paragraphs, can't read back, as on my phone! Hoping someone an advise, as I'm finding her quite a challenge, alongside caring for my toddler!

I'm wondering if she is tongue tied. Sounds like she has a lot of the symptoms.

have a look here

and here

That's interesting, thank you, I have wondered about that, although if she has, it's not an obvious one. She never latches on very well, with a nice open mouth, like dd1 always did, but instead sort of hangs off the end of my nipple, which again I know is wrong, but am at a loss as to how to correct it. She also often makes a clicking sound when feeding.

If she did have tongue tie, do you know how I would go about getting this diagnosed & treated? She has a private paediatrician, so perhaps he should be our first port of call, but it would be more convenient to see someone locally if possible.

Where are you roughly? It is worth travelling to somebody that you know will do a decent job.

In Surrey, so can easily travel into London. Just read through that list of symptoms on your first link, she fits a lot of those.

There is a really great tongue tie support group on facebook. It's a closed group, but just ask to join. You can post photos on there for comment.

Sadly, many hcps don't have a clue about tongue tie. Especially the less obvious ones you only need to look at this to see how often they are missed

The facebook group has a list of practitioners who understand about diagnosing and treating tongue tie.

Thank you so much, I'll do that. I really appreciate your help. I hope this might be the answer!

Hi, my LO is a bit like this with the latching do I have started feeding on one side to make sure he is getting all of the milk and draining the whole boob, sometimes of babies are getting to much fire mike and not enough hind this can cause green poo. Can you get to a breastfeeding consultant to help you? I basically still feed on demand but use the same boob in any 3 hour period unless I feel DS 2 has really drained it and been a whole between feeds. My DS is 9.4 weeks and is a big baby he goes between 2-3 hours between feeds and has one 4/5 hour stretch at night now xxx

A consultant should be able to help with latch and check for tongue tie or at least refer you to someone who can if they are unable. I thought my LO had it but he can stick his tongue right out, I just have a eye squarting fast let down that he struggled with at first.

Hope things improve xxx

Sorry about all the typo's it's a combination of my iPhone and night feeding... Hence fire milk and not fore

JezzaJ9 there is more to tongue tie than not being able to stick the tongue out.

DS1 could stick his tongue out really quite far and could lift it high in his mouth, but it was the back of his tongue that was restricted so he couldn't do the perastaltic movement required of the tongue in breastfeeding very well.

Thanks Jezza, I think the latch is the issue, but the question now seems to be whether this is due to tongue tie.

Mawbroon, I've had a look at her tongue since you posted, and there does seem to be a line in the middle at the front sometimes, which does sound like tongue tie doesn't it? I did however manage to get her to latch on a bit better on one side last night, & her poo was more yellow this morning. I notice she seems to latch on better on my left than my right. Do you think this is significant?

Could be that you hold her differently on each side and she finds one side easier than the other to latch on to, or it could be that your nipples are slightly different shapes and one is easier for her to latch on to.

A line on the middle at the front sounds like it could be tt, but obviously I can't say for sure on an internet forum!!

No, I realise that, but thank you very much for the advice so far. My health visitor gave me a list of local breast feeding clinics, so I think I'll go along to one of those as a starting point, and go from there.

Good luck. I hope you find somebody knowledgeable

Thanks, so do I!

The other posters are far more knowledgeable than me. However, thought I'd give my two pennies worth!

At 7 weeks my DD started having all green poos. I read about the foremilk/hindmilk thing. But our breastfeeding had actually been quite easy and I didn't see how that could've been the case for us.

But I had stopped giving her Infacol, and had heard that wind can cause green poos, as they can't digest the milk fully due to wind. She was still gaining weight, but feeding every 2 hrs.

Back on Infacol and although poos aren't all yellow, the majority are. And she's now feeding every 2.5-3 hrs instead.

That may also tie in witg your baby being unsettled, if there is painful wind trapped.

Sorry, forgot to mention in case you didn't notice that Milk Matters who I linked to in my first post have an online service where you send them pics and they give you some idea of whether your baby is tongue tied or not. I think it costs about £25 or so.

That way, you would know for sure what you are dealing with before you see doc/hv.

Thanks Princesswatermelon, that's interesting, she certainly does big burps! I wasn't aware of that as a cause of green poos.

I hadn't noticed that, Mawbroon, so thanks for highlighting that, might be a good place to start.