Is this colic?? Am i treating it right?

[DangerMousey]

My DS (6wo, FF) brings up burps quite well after feeds but seems to have real difficulty farting and pooing. He strains and cries and goes bright purple, and quite often when he's crying and we don't know why, if we pump his legs or rub his tummy lots of little farts come out.

He poos once a day and his poos look like korma sauce (!) or english mustard so I don't think he is strictly speaking 'constipated' cos they're not hard pellets or anything.

The HV said it sounds like colic, and has recommended we start putting Colief drops in his milk to see if that helps. We did this yesterday evening and in his night feeds, and he fed pretty normally (ie. a bit upset but nothing unusual there).

However, this morning he has refused both bottles I have tired to give him (at 0645 when he woke up, and again at 0845 when he started crying again). He took just 1oz on both occasions which is VERY unusual for him: he weighs 12lb, is a big boy and typically takes 5oz at each feed. This morning he was arching his back, screaming, going red in the face and refusing the bottle when I was trying to feed him. Very upsetting to watch :-(

Does this sound like classic colic to you ladies? How long should I persevere with the Colief drops to see if they work? HV said I should give it 48 hours or so...Do you think he will take a feed at some point today?? And when do I start to really worry that he's not getting enough food/drink?

It is very unusual for him to refuse his bottle, so I am very worried :(

He could be sickening for something. It might be that he just didn't fancy his milk. He's still so young at 6wo ... 5oz is a lot for one sitting at that age. Could you maybe give him less milk (4oz) at smaller intervals? You could try him on 'comfort formula', or 'easy digest' milk which, as there are smaller milk molecules, the baby can digest the milk more easily.

IME, Coleif isn't great, and a HUGE faff, especially for night feeds. My beloved DD1 (almost 4yo now) had gastric reflux and was finally given Gaviscon infant powder from our GP, which in combination with the comfort formula, helped a lot.

Hope you sort things out soon :)

Btw, FF babies tend to take in a lot of air when sucking at feed time, hence your DS's farting, and possibly his tummy pain - Tommee Tippee anti-colic bottles (no.2 teats of you're going to try the comfort formula) are good :)

Dr Brown bottles are great - the vents seemed to stop as much air getting in. You could try infacol to help with burps.

The back arching, and starting the bottle but only taking a little, sounds a bit like reflux to me, to be honest. Does he normally settle well after feeds? Is he happy to lie flat generally? Does he vomit, or do wet-sounding burps?

He's not sick very often - a little bit of posseting but not the projectile vomit in have heard is associated with reflux.

He is generally happy to sleep on his back as long as he is swaddled.

You're right the Colief is a real faff. Will stick with it for a couple of days to see if there's any improvement and if not will try the comfort milk.

I have never really heard of babies having such trouble with their poos and farts but he seems to be in such pain :(

Our DD suffered colic right up till about 6/7 weeks. She's ebf co colief was a total faff, we used infacol which worked really well.

Oh and now shes on gaviscon which makes her constipated we also give her a bit of cool boiled water, only done it for a day so dunno if it works but doc suggested it.

You could try a cranial osteopath. It seemed to work for us when DD had horrible trapped wind.

Possibly silent reflux? Video a feed on your phone and show it to your GP and/or HV.

Sounds like silent reflux to me. My DD is like this, you need to find comfortable positions for them to feed and offer the bottle/breast often. They'll usually take little but often when the reflux is bugging them.

A reduced lactase resulting in temporary lactose intolerance can give similar symptoms though, so it's worth persisting with the Colief and see what difference 48 hrs makes.