New born and wind pain

[schmalice]

Hi all,

I'm hoping for some sage advice! My DD us 3 weeks old and bottle fed EBM and formula. She suffers from terrible wind and it's causing her so much pain. We use infacol at every feed and Dr Browns bottles, also wind for 5 mins in the middle of a feed and again for ages at the end. She brings up plenty but still seems so uncomfortable.

She gulps each feed and you can hear her swallowing air and then it going down in to her tummy.

I suspect there's nothing we can do other than what we are and just wait. We do all the standard winding things, massage etc.

It is lots worse at night and she just won't settle.

Poor thing (and you).
We used gripe water from when we could (1 month if i remember? Sorry Ds is 3.5 now!)
We used mam bottles but I bf ds til 11 weeks with a bm bottle at night.
We sat him sideways across our knee, and rotated him in a circle holding a Muslim under his chin.
This used to get most of the wind out, any more would come out on its own.
Sorry if that doesn't help but didn't want to r n r x

Muslin! Darn phone!

(Laughing at my fave mumsnet typo....:) :) )

schmalice, it's worth getting some help with this, as it may be that holding your baby and positioning her differently will change the way she feeds.

Is breastfeeding direct not an option for you now? Bf babies still get wind, so it's no guarentee, but a bf baby can control the flow more easily, if you think this is what lies at the heart of the problem.

Sadly I think the BF ship has sailed for me now. It was a fairly disastrous start and the combination of watching my DD take my blood along with the milk and then the utter sobbing from all concerned meant that I became terrified of feeding her. Maybe I'm a wuss! I do feel like if I'd managed to feed her then she wouldn't have this terrible wind.

I will go to the health visitor clinic next week and see if they can help with our technique. It's much worse at night so I am just militant with winding.

I suspect I just have to sit it out till she gets the hang of it and her digestive system works a bit better..

You could discuss whether it really is wind, with the HV - don't assume it is.

You could also explore returning to breastfeeding direct, if you want to. You could call any of the bf helplines - this is not an unusual thing to want to do :) If bf direct was painful for you, and you were bleeding, it is not being a wuss to become scared of it - who wants feeding to be flippin painful?

I am guessing that if it wasn't actually painful, you'd be happy to have a go.....well, there may be ways for it not to be painful. At three weeks your dd will manage to go back to bf just fine, but of course you need to ensure it is a good experience.