Incontrollable crying after feeds0 what is happening to my 6 wo?

[LadyRenoir]

So until this week, my 6 wo has not posed many problems- except the usual depriving us from sleep. He did cry a lot during changing clothes/nappies, nut nothing beyond that. He fed well (he is formula fed with occasional feeds of expressed milk), steadily increasing his feeds (he was 4 weeks premature) from 30- to now anywhere near 60-150 depending on how hungry he is.
He has colic, but again, after burping the crying was going away and was only happening after the evening feeds.
Since Wednesday, he started crying uncontrollably after evening meals, then on Thursday came morning feeds, and Friday/today even the night ones. There usually is at least one good feed a day when this is not yet happening. The crying can go for hours and nothing can soothe him, he does not even want to cuddle like he did before :(
He used to be able to fall asleep on my chest, and now he just grimaces and cries and cries.
We considered silent reflux on top of colic, our GP did not seem to concerned though and advised Gaviscon that I have heard not great things about.
We tried the dummy, and he took to it instantly- which makes me wonder if it can be reflux, if dummy can sort it out?

I don't want to rely too much on it as last night we tried to soothe him after the feed, he fell asleep and it fell out, and he woke us up crying like crazy again.

I am heartbroken, as I used to be able to soothe him cuddling, and he used to fall asleep on my chest, and we had a nice cuddly time together. Now I can only cuddle him when he is actually asleep

My baby was like this with silent reflux. We changed to Comfort milk and he got better. We had to hold him upright for 20 mins after each feed and prop up one end of his cot. X

We have been doing this too all along, but he literally cries all the time now, yesterday on and off for 3 hours or so, at the end of which I was also in tears and pieces.
GP said not to change formula as he is gaining weight well- which we are happy about, but don't know why the change happened now since he has been on the same formula for 5 weeks now.
The only thing that does the trick is the dummy which we wanted to avoid at all cost, but is the only thing to save us from going crazy now and became a must to soothe him.

Silent reflux symptoms very often become apparent at or after 6 weeks. This is exactly what happened with my DD. All of a sudden, she started arching her back and crying uncontrollably at each feed.

What worked for us was a combination of anti-reflux milk and ranitidine. We also tried gaviscon but it didn't do anything. Anti-reflux milk worked much better.

Dummies can indeed be very helpful with reflux babies so if it works for your DS, I would go with it.

Mine was like this and we had to give lactase (for lactose intolerace) b4 every feed. But she started crying around the end of every feed at 4 to 6 weeks.

If a dummy works then go with it - everyone gets some much-needed rest and then everything else is so much easier. It's not what you wanted but its not the end of the world either

Both mine had a "witching hour" from around that age to four months when they would cry a lot between 7 and 10 pm, maybe three or four nights out of seven. Walking round the lounge holding them lots of different ways and singing or taking them out in the fling for done sir eventually made them calm down. It settled down after a four months or so without us needing to go anything else.
Done good advice of things to rule out from PP but if nothing seems to help then don't lose hope of things rectifying themselves eventually!

*sling for some air, even!!

How are nappies too? Is constipation a possibility? Is there any back arching?

Any possibility of CMPA (dairy allergy) as that can often present as inconsolable crying after feeds because of the pain it causes them.

Are there any other signs?

Dry skin? Cradle cap? Eczema?
Vomiting, diarrhoea, sore bottom?

@badg3r He does one poo a day, but it's a BIG one. It's not watery, but a regular consistency. He does arch his back during the worst 'attacks', and becomes all straight- straightens his legs so it's difficult to hold him (we assumed colic?).

@QueenofmyPrinces It just started last week, he was on the same formula since he was born (well Cow&Gate and then Aptamil). Our GP said if it was allergy, he would have a diarrhea, which he does not. He does seem to have a bit of a dry skin and has a dry patch on his forehead- but we live in hard water area, and also heating is on all the time to some extent, plus my husband has egzema because of egg intolerance, so we think he may have inherited it.

He does not vomit, but occasionally brings a bit food up, which we assumed is a sign of reflux. Also, the symptoms do not appear during all feeds...Sometimes he has the bottle and goes to sleep.

It's frustrating as GP saw him on Friday for his check and decided that 'some kids cry a lot and some not at all', and that my lo was just a crier- that was the diagnosis I was given... I assume if there was something wrong with his skin, he would have noticed/said something.

We are gonna try the gripe water instead of infacol, although apparently although it helps colic, it makes reflux worse, so not sure what to do!

Also, not sure if these are connected (pretty sure they are) - he tends to gulp down food, which sets off the reflux. It's very hard to pace him, as he becomes distressed when hungry and not eating- and then distressed, as he looks in pain when eating, and then distressed after eating.
I hope it's a phase that will go away, but would like to eliminate something...

Don't panic about the dummy - much better than him being in pain and not the end of the world after all :)

However I would not accept being fobbed off by GP as "just crying" if you know something specific is triggering it!

Can you try holding him upright to feed (in a sort of sitting position propped on your arm) so that the bottle is horizontal. That means they tend to gulp less as they have to actively suck - gravity doesn't do the work for them.

You could also look at anti-colic bottles.

@BertieBotts I was not impressed- especially the GP saw him crying while I was feeding him in the room! And he just kind of ignored it and said some babies do that and gave a gaviscon prescription. I know it makes babies very constipated and know literally no one for whom it worked, so I am hesitant about using it.

We started taking the bottle off him and walking around the room with him on our shoulders (he cries less on the shoulder), like this he settles a bit and the food doe not go up, he can burp and also he does not overdrink. I think I saw a difference in the morning, still a lot of crying, but not so hysterical as yesterday. The issue is that he is a crier (cries when changing, putting clothes on, taking clothes off, cries like crazy when hungry, even if he ends up only having a 10 ml top up after his main feed) it's hard to say how much of it was the 'normal' crying, and how much the reflux, but I certainly thought he was more settled.

It seems to get worse in the evening, so fingers crossed what we did in the morning will work again.

The other thing that I was not too happy is that GP only looked at him gaining weight- and said that as long as he is gaining weight, all is well. So I have to wait until he starts loosing weight for the GP to want to do something? :/
Well, will try some things out, and report back, maybe it will turn out useful for other posters :)

@LadyRenoir I appreciate this was a while ago but my nearly 6 week old son is presenting the exact same symptoms! I wondered if you figured out a cause?

Yes, I'm still around. It turned out to be a severe dairy allergy causing reflux. We fought long for it to be recognised, finally ended up on a prescribed formula Similac Alimentum and then Alfamino. We saw instant improvements but it took 4 weeks and we had a different baby!
Ideas from here and fb reflux support groups were invaluable, if you need any help let me know!

@LadyRenoir thanks for replying that's really interesting as I saw my GP on Wednesday (couldn't get hold of HV) and he said it was allergy and prescribed Neocate straight away which to be honest I thought was a bit of a knee jerk reaction as he barely looked at him! My son had spots on his face which I put down to baby acne and it's actually got better! But he said it's not baby acne and is a symptom of allergy.

Was your son difficult to burp at all? Mine won't burp at all and screams after most feeds as he's obviously in pain.

I'm seeing my HV on Wednesday and I hope she'll have some answers but I am thinking allergy...

Forgot to add he's also put on weight, over a pound since birth!

Our growth was fantastic, which is why we waited for the diagnosis for months- we kept on hearing he is absolutely fine, even though he clearly wasnt, and that if he had an allergy he woud not be gaining well (a pile of bs...).
I personally found not many HVs nor GPs are actually up to date knowledgeable about allergies, we had some really bad advice from our HV. Our best chance was getting to be seen by a dietitian and a ped combo in hospital, one of whom had a CMPA baby herself, and knew her stuff.
Mt son needed some antireflux meds for a while, and the HV told us not to use them because it will create problems in future - she was definitely not qualified to give such opinion, hope you have better luck.
Ours was ok to be burped, but he would often bring bits of milk up and I could often hear him swallow it back, a lot of the pain came from his stomach and guts as the milk went through the system and it took a few weeks to heal (I think it takes 3-4 weeks for it to be compeltely gone from the system). It's worth giving Neocate a try- I am glad to see GP would prescribe it, as ours insisted only pediatricians can and flat out refused!

@Strawberry06 going through the same what did yours turn out to be?