Bf ds distressed in the night by his gut. Thinking about colief?

[badguider]

My ds is nearly six weeks and most nights is painfully distressed by his gut. This results in 1.5hrly waking a after 3/4am through till a poo about 8 or 9am.

He has a bottle of expressed bm about 9/10pm from dh so I can get my only block of more than 2hrs sleep each day and the last three nights he's had a green poo sometime between midnight and 4am.

I am wondering if colief in his expressed bottle is worth trying? I have my suspicions (for many reasons) about an excess of formilk in general but maybe even more so in the milk I express.

Does anybody have experience of using colief either just at night or just in expressed feeds???

Oh, forgot to say, all his other poos are a healthy yellow, it's just the night one is green.

And weight gain is healthy but on the low side (eg. Around 150g a week instead of 170g expected).

my dd2 also has a block of sleep in the earlier part of the night and sleeps in blocks of less than 2 hours after that 3 hour stretch. also windy. and trying for a poo which often emerges.

tbh I think it is about normal for this age and am not worrying about it. dd1 was a good sleeper and this doesn't feel horrific so I figure dd2 might be too.

so I'm no help with whether to try it or not but it does sound normal to me.

I'm not sure that everyone differentiates between fore and hind milk either.

let's hope it improves soon!

There isn't any evidence that colief or similar achieves anything other than draining your wallet, I'm afraid.

If there is a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance (which is rare, tbh), a bottle of expressed milk is more likely to contain foremilk than a normal feed.

Is sleeping with him an option? You get more rest that way ...

Thanks for your replies - the bottle containing more foremilk is exactly why I am thinking of adding the colief to it.

And I am lying next to him at night but can't sleep as he is so unbelievably loud :(

Nothing really to say in terms of advice. My DS was like this from around 3-4am onwards at that age. It got easier as he got older.

I never found an answer. It wasn't colic - my DC1 had colic and it was different. Still trapped wind causing distress, but not the endless hard screaming that colic brings.

It seemed to help him when he could roll to sleep on his front, which he still does. Obviously I can't say to let your baby do that, but is sleeping on the side possible, or can you hold your baby on his front for a while to help the wind pass?

Good luck. I know it's hard. It will pass (the phase, and the wind!).

My son is the same - he is four weeks and is unsettled with wind from about 4am. He has the last few nights done a long stretch of sleep of 5 hours from 8 til 1am ish (he is big, am still in shock over the 5hrs, did not get this with first son til he was a lot older!) but then been all over the place after his next waking at 4am ish. He suffers from wind really badly - I think as a result of my massively over exuberant let down, and it seems to peak from 4am through the early part of the day. He often produces his poo between 4 and 6am too.

I am sceptical about colief and so have just been trying to wind him when he seem in discomfort; just moving him about a lot and changing position usually results in farts and burps. And feeding him / letting him fall asleep on me seems to help sometimes!

Thanks folks.

It's good to know all is "normal" but it doesn't stop me wanting him to feel better - he seems just so uncomfortable.

I am hugely grateful he doesn't have actual colic as that must be heartbreaking.

Colief is different to infacol etc and is the only one proven to work however it will only work if the problem is lactose intolerance as the active ingredient is lactase which breaks down lactose. If it doesn't work then the problem is not lactose intolerance so it can be used as a diagnostic tool (ie to rule it out).

The reason it may help with too much foremilk is that it contains more lactose.

We've used it since about 2 weeks and it helped almost instantly (to the extent that I'm sure it wasn't just coincidence or placebo) where infacol etc did nothing.

He now has it twice a day. I express a little before feeding and then cup feed him with colief mixed with ebm. I'm also reducing the volume from 4 drops to 3 then I'll go to 2 next week. I aim would like to almost stop it by around 12 weeks as this is when lactose intolerance is likely to subside as gut matures.

That's the main problem. If you try it for 2 weeks and the problem wasn't lactose intolerance you still need to wean them off it as they haven't been digesting the lactose themselves whilst they're on it.

Hth

thanks cogito - the information about how colief works matches what I had read but I hadn't thought about the issue of weaning off it.

after his discomfort being witnessed by the mw who runs my postnatal pilates we have decided to try baby probiotics on her advice first.
the jury is still out on baby probiotics but some studies look hopeful particularly with bf babies.
I don't doubt that this would clear up in time by itself but every parent wants to minimise their child's discomfort.