Please help! New baby feeding/nappy issues

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Apologies in advance if this is garbled and long!

I'm a FTM & my ds is 4 weeks old. He feeds extremely well (EBF) & is gaining weight nicely but I don't feel that I am handling feeds/changes very well & need some advice on what you would do in this situation please.

Issue 1: He has started to spit up milk (not a large amount) after almost all feeds - HV (& Google) said it all seems normal.

Issue 2: He seems to be quite windy after a feed, screwing up his face, arching his back & not settling. I try to wind him but either I don't do it right or I don't do it long enough. I have tried Infacol on my HV's advice but it doesn't seem to be having much affect (& he HATES the taste!)

Issue 3: He has a huge amount of wet & dirty nappies each day & has suffered quite badly with nappy rash (so I try to change him asap). After each feed when issues 1 & 2 settle down he falls asleep but he then has quite explosive dirty nappies & a huge amount of wind release from his bottom (usually goes again as I'm changing him too!) so I wake him up & upset him by changing him usually twice.

So my question is, can you offer me any advice as to how to handle these issues better? Moving him around to wind him after feeds seems to exacerbate his spitting up & if I don't get rid of his wind then nappies changes are lethal & he gets quite upset. This is a particular issue at night when I really want him to settle but I can't leave his nappy as he will get sore.

TIA for any responses.

It's good to check - as you have done :) - with HV.

All this sounds normal new baby stuff. Every last syllable! Normal and expected and something that probably all babies experience and then grow out of.

Sounds like you are doing all the right things - nappy rash would prob benefit from a barrier cream (ask the HV or chemist) and might mean you don't always have to change him super quick.

The screwing up of his face and squirming and not settling might not be wind at all - babies do all of these things and once you have gone through different ways of winding it's not worth worrying about really.....he presumably eventually settles anyway and it is definitely new baby behaviour!

He's basically ok as you can see and growing well. These niggles will pass soon :)

Have you tried holding baby on their tummy with your hands clasped under their belly (legs hanging off both sides of your arm)? It's meant to combat colic. It used to help my DD get the last wind out (she wasn't all that windy really, but she had a few issues with colic at some point).

For the rest it's fine. 😊

Have you tried winding and nappy changing mid feed instead of at the end? If you can get most of the wind out earlier it could reduce the spitting up too. If you can catch the poo before finishing the feed then you can use the second half of the feed to settle him to sleep.

Could you try a food diary and see if anything makes his wind worse? I have 4 children and have breastfed them all- but the fourth was really bad with me eating garlic or tomatoes for some reason. It gave him wind and tummy pain.

Other than that I think you’re doing just fab- they can take some getting used to normal digestion.

This sounds like a possible dairy allergy to me. My own DC reacted through breast milk so I had to be on a dairy free diet (2 weeks elimination needed to clear my system and baby’s system). Ask your HV or GP about it. Always worth a try to go dairy free if you can. Yellow metanium cream works wonders for nappy rash.