9 week old baby screaming and in latching during feeds- does this sound like reflux?

[rosetintedspectacles]

Apologies in advance for a long post, but I'm desperate for some help!

My DD has been exclusively breastfed since birth and up until 6 weeks breastfeeding was completely trouble free for us, but during week 6 she started pulling away and screaming during feeds. I tried various upright feeding positions (fast letdown was suggested as a possible issue by breastfeeding counsellors), but nothing seemed to help. Weirdly though, she always feeds perfectly and without a single scream from 9pm on the dot until about 7am.

She was refusing some feeds completely after a week or so of this happening (and went 4am-2pm without feeding on one day) so I took her to the doctor and was prescribed Gaviscon. It didn't seem to help at all, so we stopped using it.

She's now 9 weeks and has had a bad head cold for two weeks now, which I know has been affecting her breathing whilst feeding. I'm using saline spray, snot suckers etc. to help. But even when she doesn't sound congested, she's still pulling away and screaming until she's bright red in the face and hysterical.

I'm having to soothe her with a dummy multiple times each daytime feed until she's calm enough to really get going, and it's making our feeds incredibly stressful and upsetting for us both.

I've been persevering through this for 3 weeks now and am exhausted by it, and wondering if I should try either putting her back on the Gaviscon, or cutting cows milk from my diet to see if that helps? Or just ride it out and hope things resolve when she hits the magic three month mark?

Has anyone experienced similar, or have any ideas? TIA!

This was identical to me and my DD at that age! We found it she was sensitive to dairy. I cut it out and within days I had a more settled child at night. After 3 weeks I had some dairy and the 9-7 screaming returned for 2 days. At 15 months she can tolerate some dairy via food & breast but if she has a dairy yoghurt she will puke it up

Oh that's interesting! The strange thing is though she's her most settled at night, and never screams during feeds from 9pm onwards. It's so bizarre. I think maybe I will try cutting dairy and see if it helps?

If she's most settled at night I'd say it's unlikely to be silent reflux - it tends to be worse at night as they are lying flat the whole time. I would also suggest cutting out dairy to see if it helps.

It's definitely worth giving dairy free a try. My dd had similar symptoms from the off. Wish I knew what it was as I assumed she wasn't getting enough milk so stopped bf when I could've just cut out dairy! Gaviscon is horrible stuff. Made my dd ten times worse as made her constipated. Good luck hope she's feeling better soon

Good luck Rose! We kept being told to top her up as it's where she was hungry even tho she was perfectly following the weight percentile she was born on. We tried gaviscon- constipated her and made it worse (gp prescribed) I know it wasn't reflux as she wouldn't be laying down etc.

If she's fine at night you may have a fast let down which is hindering her feeding during the day.

Take a look at this link on fast let down on Kellymom website (awesome site for evidence based BF advice)

Don't cut out dairy without medical advice, it is something you need to seek first before making changes.

So grateful for all your responses! I will nip to the doctor next week to speak with them about it, but think I'll lay off the dairy in the meantime just to kick things off and see if it helps.

DrLockheart thanks for KellyMom link! I've tried a few techniques of the techniques for dealing with fast letdown and haven't had much luck, but will persevere. My milk supply is highest first thing in the morning and she seems to cope better then, and worst in the late afternoon.

Hi op
It's so strange to read your post as I have an identical situation with my 7 week old ds.
He was fine until 5 weeks old and is literally what you describe.
I've also considered silent reflux but since my ds is settled and feeds well at night I wasn't sure. Some days he is fine.
I'm going to speak to the gp at my ds's 6 week check on Monday.

Interestingly, my ds1 didn't have these issues but had a dairy and milk allergy that he grew out of by 3.
I'm going to try switching to soya milk (ds1 was not allergic to soya) to see if this helps. Although I know it can take a few weeks for it to leave your system.

I've tried feeding in the saddle hold but I've found what works for us is feeding when he's really hungry as this seems to upset him less.

I've also wondered if it's oversupply but I'm not sure how to tell

My ds's both had tongue ties and now ds2 has had his snipped he is gradually more able to deal with more milk. Is this something you have had checked?

Sorry to hear you're experiencing the same melon, it's so distressing isn't it? Can I ask what symptoms your eldest son had with his CMPI? Apparently the forceful letdown/oversupply issue often makes them pull away after a couple of minutes on the breast. I know my left side has a faster flow because she often gets sprayed in the face from that side, but it's happened since day one and I'd be surprised if that was suddenly what was affected her?

I was told at our 6 week check that she has a very slight posterior tongue tie, but it's wasnt prominent enough to be causing issues other than a tiny but some pain on my right side that was fixed by switching to the rugby ball hold for a couple of days.

I'm going to give my health visits a call on Monday and see if they can help, though Sod's law says that if they come out to assess her feeding it'll be one of the occasions where she feeds without a fuss!

Have you got a BF group you can go to? They may have a counsellor or peer support person to check your latch.

My fast let down caused exactly the same problems durning the new born weeks and in an ad hoc way like yours too. I worked it out that when she was hungry / development leaping, she could cope with it and inhale her milk, but when she wanted comfort feeding / little bit hungry she couldn't deal with it and would pull off. She's also feed for comfort and then sick it all back up.

She had no other symptoms of reflux or allergies (no pain, poos fine, etc)

I did a mild version of block feeding too which helped.

Definitely see if you can speak to a BF counsellor in the area.

He had eczema really badly from about 3 months old. When he started weaning he came out in hives on his face after eating milk. I then gave up milk myself and his eczema cleared up a bit. He didn't touch dairy until he was 2 after this when he did the milk introduction programme.
By the time he was 3 he could eat all forms of dairy but I think the allergy was there a bit because he still had eczema.
He's now 4 and has no allergy and no eczema!