Aptamil comfort or anti reflux?

[Drchinnery]

Sorry for the long post! Took my nearly 6 week old to the doctor today at my wits end! To cut a long story short he was born at 35+4, was tube fed, had trouble latching due to poor suck reflex, eventually got him to take a bottle. Was expressing for 4 weeks. Managed to latch him on to breast and have been bf with odd top up here and there. Last week got my period back and have found my milk has just suddenly dropped. My LO has just started fussing at breast yesterday and has been hungry so been giving him formula and after a long complicated journey to get him to bf have decided to switch.

Anyway for a good 4 weeks he has been fussy after eating, full of wind, screaming trying to pass it. I've been using infacol as suggested by HV but it hasn't helped much. The last 2 weeks he has been gagging after feeds, gurgling, crying unless I hold him, screaming trying to pass wind, won't lay flat insists on being upright. The past few days it's got worse and he's been fussing over eating when normally he's great, constantly gagging, won't be put down for more than 10 mins. He's also started bringing milk up, not a full feed but quite a lot following over about 2 hours. He's also spitting out milk while he's drinking which he's never done before he's been used to bottle since he was born. It's both the same on formula or breastmilk.

Took him to the doctor and she basically wasn't interested as he seemed fine then (he was in his car seat, and had just been in the car so he would have been) and seemed a bit dismissive about it, saying it could just be his digestive system catching up (even though he's 6 weeks) the HV hasnt been interested either. Anyway she said to give him aptamil colic and reflux. I didn't realise until I left that they are two separate milks, so I'm unsure of which one to give. I feel a bit fobbed off to be honest and am still none the wiser as to how to treat him. Has anyone got any similar experience? Which milk did you use and did it help?

Thanks

[lovethecountryside]

Hi Op,
So sorry that hear about your BF experience, if it's any consolation I also struggled to BF for various reasons. My little girl is 9 months we are just on the normal apitmal brand, so I can't comment on the specific formulas to any great length but from personal experience, I did get a lot of fussiness around 8/9 weeks and the HV suggested reflux formula which I did switch across too, but I actually didn't think it was necessary for her to be on this formula for the duration as I read that reflux will peak at 4 months and it pretty much did.

Now she is 9 months she hardly ever spits up so it does improve. Reflux formula has a thickener to help with keeping the milk down. My friends little girl had terrible reflux at 3 months bringing most, if not all her feeds up and the doctor said periodically try the normal formula again to see if the reflux has settled. The comfort milk is supposed to be gentler on their tummy.
I guess it definitely depends how bad the reflux is as quite a few babies suffer from reflux and it can get progressively worse before getting better, which it what I found, but never to the extent of my friends little one.
Maybe try the reflux for a couple of weeks and see if that helps? Or I use to use the reflux in the evening as this helped to settle in her tummy before bedtime.
Hope it all gets easier soon x

[Drchinnery]

Thank you! I went for the comfort in the end to try and he's like a different baby already after a day! Still a lot of sneezing, bit of wretching, wheezing etc but nowhere near as bad as before! Will try this for a week then if not try the reflux one.