Aptimal Pepti1 - any experiences?

[tattyteddy]

hello, just wanted other's experiences please

My ds is 6 weeks today and we started off by ebf, however by day 5 he'd lost 13% of birth weight. We ended up doing an overnight stay at RVI hospital and they checked for tongue tie but said there wasn't enough to cut. They decided on a feeding plan and I would breast feed and then top up with formula. I was expressing too, however not getting that much out.

Luckily he started putting weight on by the next day and has been gaining weight ever since. I have continued with combined feeding. Unfortunately, the GP now thinks baby has a milk allergy so he's on special formula but I'm continuing to bf too. The reason for thinking that he has a milk allergy is that I was finding mucosy blood in this stools.

We started the special formula on Wednesday and by yesterday I found no blood in stools so hopefully it is working and clearing up.

I normally buy ready made formula for when out and about, however pepti 1 isn't available ready made - how did other's manage this?

Also GP said we can retry introducing cows milk at 9 months. Have others experience of doing this and did it work well?

Thanks for reading.

Hi OP. Sorry to hear your DS is suffering with a milk allergy, it's really rough.

My DD was put on Pepti 1 when she was a few months old (exclusively FF), and stayed on it until she developed an intolerance to lactose and had to be put on yet another milk. But before that the Pepti was brilliant! Helped her straight away.

With regards to taking it out with you, there's two options. If you're not going to be out long then you can just make it up as normal (boiling water, powder, cold water), and put it in a bottle bag to keep it warm. IIRC, the guidelines for Pepti say it's got to be used in two hours? Might be longer/shorter, and it's fine to go a bit longer.

If you're going to be out for awhile, what I used to do was get a flask and fill it with the correct amount of boiling water (we had a Perfect Prep so was never worried about how much!), then fill a normal bottle with the cold. Powder went into a powder dispenser pot, and I usually took another bottle with me for DD to drink from. Later I got a huge Tommee Tippee flask for free, and when I made her bottle I used to tip the cold water into the big lid thing, then pour the boiling water into the bottle, add the powder and the cold water. Sounds a faff but it was really simple.

And as for introducing dairy, DD is 21mo and still has dairy-free milk, although is fine with other dairy products. We stopped the special milk (Nutramigen) at 18mo or so, and switched her onto Alpro for her porridge and bedtime milk. Soon we're going to make the transition to 'real' milk, but we're overly cautious because she was incredibly poorly with it all. She'd probably be fine as she hasn't been sick/had terrible nappies/screamed after dairy for months and months.

Sorry this is so long, but I know how hard it is and wanted you to know that things WILL improve. If DS does have CMPA then the milk will definitely help! I had to really fight for the doctors to help DD, so I'm glad your DS has been put on Pepti so early.

Thanks for the reply coodle. I think the GP picked it up quickly due to the blood in tHe stools. Fingers crossed the blood hasn't been seen seen since Saturday.

We've got a perfect prep machine for the house, best invention! I will also go and get a flask thing you mentioned.