Original problem: Wind. Comfort milk given = New problem: Crying... Help!

[Goandplay]

Baby 6 weeks old and very windy and grunting after feeds. HV said try comfort milk. Since then DS is crying lots and impossible to settle. He now seems windy from the other end and they're very, very smelly.

Should I go back to Aptimil stage 1?

Any experiences of something similar?

Any ideas?

Comfort milk is supposed to help with "colic" symptoms by being relatively easy to digest and being thicker, thereby reducing the incidence of refluxing.

Most babies (ime) make some gripey, windy wriggling noises at some point after a feed. This is often related to the bowel filling and so precedes a poo. It can look very uncomfortable and ot'snpt nice to comfort them with rocking/ patting etc, although it just passes with a poo IYSWIM. At a guess, i'd say that's what your baby is doing. (assuming otherwise well, not vomiting etc).

Has the change of milk helped the original problem?

It's helped with the original problem but the new cry is constant almost.

The crying is full on rather than whinging.

I can't think of anything else that would have caused the change.

Hunger?
Does he empty the bottle?
What has his poo been like?
How long have you had new problem? / new milk?

Comfort milk is thicker so make sure teat is appropriate ( we had to move to next size up) also it can constipated baby so offer cool boiled water. There is a transition period of a few days before baby settles.

If he feeds well and empties the bottle the cry is likely to be hunger. Hunger cries are often loud and open mouthed (waaaa waaaa kind of thing).
Sometimes the thicker milk is harder to get through the teat so baby gets tired before he can drink enough milk.

Poos should be soft.
Nappies should be wet(lots)

Griping is quite common with the bowel filling. The cry would come after a feed but not immediately IYSWIM. It's a more squirmy kind of cry.

If baby is poorly you often get poor feeding/ avoiding teat/ high pitched cry.

How are you getting on goandplay?

Hi sorry for delay.

I thought it was reading to the milk so tried the original milk but was only able to get the ready made bottle. DS is drinking bigger bottles and seems satisfied for the first time. After a day of this milk he managed 2 4 hour gaps between feeds in the last 12 hours.
Still some grunting but feels like the lesser of 2 evilS IYSWIM.

Don't apologise
Glad things seemed to have settled.
So he's back on the aptamil 1st?

Hope you have a good night.

He is. Screaming his little head off last 20 minutes but don't think it's anything to do with milk... but who knows?!

The only way to calm him was an oz of milk.

Don't worry about giving him extra milk. If he's hungry feed him. It's pretty hard to over feed a baby if you let them decide when it stop drinking their bottle and don't force them to finish it.

Don't worry about him lasting 4 hours between feeds either. My DD never went more than three hours until she started solids at 6 months.

Good luck

I agree with littlebearpad
Just give him the milk when you think he needs it.
He sounds hungry.

I had this with my DD. Used Aptamil 1st and she spent a lot of time screaming..HV advised comfort and she settled for a while. Poos were green and smelly, but apparently thats normal as comfort milk is partially hydrolysed to make it easier to digest. The crying started again a few days after so doc prescribed colief which helps break down the lactose in the milk. Sometimes the immature digestive system in babies can struggle with lactose. She was then prescribed gaviscon as the DR suspected silent reflux (where the stomach acid comes up into the oeasophagus and burns the throat, hence the continuous demand to feed as the milk/sucking soothes the throat...as these babies are rarely sick and gain lots of weight due to overfeeding it can go undiagnosed). It tool 11 weeks to get there, but the gaviscon worked and she was far happier and content after feeding.
DD was also very noisy squirmy and grunted a lot. DS who is 5yrs older was noisy like all newborns but nowhere near as bad as DD.
Sucking is a big help so a dummy worked wonders. I was also able to comfort her if I kept her upright after a feed....She would fall asleep over my shoulder and then wake up screaming as soon as I lay her down. If I put her on her tummy to sleep (for naps only) she would stay asleep.
Are you able to comfort DS in other ways eg keeping upright, offering dummy to see if that helps? Is it just milk that settles him and is he very settled after the extra ounces.
There will be lots of threads on here about silent reflux. Maybe read some and see if you can relate to any of the symptoms. If you can then may be worth a chat with the DR. Hopefully it won't be Silent reflux, but if it is then getting it diagnosed sooner rather than later will be better all round.

Good luck.