9 Weeks Old - Suddenly crying and pulling away from breast 😔

[RWK29]

DS is 9 weeks old and exclusively breast fed. For the last week he’s been SO fussy at every feed. Will latch for a minute or 2 then pulls away from the breast crying and fussing. If I go to put him back on he thrashes about “biting” for the breast like a wild animal that’s never been fed 😓 again he lasts a minute or 2 and then kicks off again. Happens on both breasts at most times of the day (no pattern to it...just occasionally he’ll take a feed with little fuss - maybe one per day). He suffers badly with wind so have always winded him frequently during feeding - between breasts and if he stops for a break. During this last week he even screams when trying to wind him unless you give him a dummy 😓

I don’t think I’m doing anything differently 😓 I’ve been reading all about fast/slow let down. Can this just happen suddenly? There seems to be plenty of milk - whenever he pulls away there is milk in his mouth. Up until this point we’ve been managing well with the breastfeeding. Anything else it could be?! I’m at a loss 😓😓😓 Have tried dark rooms etc incase he’s being distracted but makes no difference. Was tempted to express and give a bottle to see if he takes that with no fuss but I’d rather not give bottles if I don’t need to 🤔

Background incase it’s relevant: born at 8lb 11oz (75th centile). Exclusively breastfed from birth. 6% weight loss first week. Back over birth weight by week 2. Settled at 50th centile and has stayed there ever since.

Spoke to my health visitor about things and she advised phoning the GP to see about a prescription for gaviscon incase it was a reflux issue.

Started the gaviscon last night and it just seems to have made his gas 100% worse 😓 and doesn’t seem to have made any difference to his feeding - he’s still pulling away from the breast crying constantly. He was awake every half hour overnight trying to pass wind and is SO fussy and cranky today 😓 seems like he still has a sore belly.

Our son with silent reflux didnt cope well with gaviscon, made him constipated and in more pain, didn’t help feeding either. We ended up with him on ranitidine which worked well for him but not sure if still prescribed now.

Might also be worth checking for thrush. I had similar issues (now being treated) and kept thinking it was silent reflux but ended up being thrush

It does sound a lot like both my DDs were with reflux. We bypassed Gaviscon and had Domperidone and Ranitadine prescribed by a consultant, only because she was in hospital for another reason and they wanted to cut straight to the chase, then we knew what to look for the next time around. These eased it, but it wasn’t much fun until they were old enough to keep themselves upright. An upright sling was also a great help.

My DC behaved like this when she had oral thrush. Her tongue appeared to be coated in milk - that's how you can tell.

@Gigi10 @ScrambledSmegs Thrush did come up when I googled it but his mouth is definitely completely clear 🤷🏻‍♀️

@VerbenaGirl The doctor did say on the phone that they were able to prescribe Ranitadine or Omeprazole if he needed something different. I’ve taken him off the gaviscon just now and we’re doing lots of baby massage and bicycle legs to hopefully try and clear it! He’s very gassy from his wee bum but no sign of a dirty nappy yet 😓 last was at 7pm on Friday night and he usually goes at least twice per day with lots of little smears on his nappy in between as he’s so gassy. But not even a smear since he had the gaviscon 😓

Breastfed babies absolutely do get reflux!

I found gaviscon absolutely useless and a pain to administer, but my baby is now on omeprazole and that seems to have helped. I find it can also help to feed him upright, sitting astride my knee and propped up with a pillow behind him. It takes some practice but definitely helps with the reflux.

Gaviscon is a pain for causing constipation. We switched from gaviscon to omperazole and now are on both and lactulose for the constipation.

@Terracottasaur @Superscientist Thanks guys! Glad you found things that worked for your little one 😊 I’m not entirely convinced that it is reflux 🤔 he’s been much better today after finally managing a dirty nappy this morning. Going to keep an eye on him over the next couple of days and if things start back up again I’ll see about getting something else from the doctor for him I think.

Could fast/slow let down cause the same type of reaction? Pulling away crying and thrashing around? 🤔

Yes it can. I have a fast letdown too and when we started our reflux journey I had a couple of appointments with the infant feeding team to assess our feeds to check for tongue tie, latch, oversupply and how well the fast letdown was tolerates. With us there was no sign of oversupply and she tolerated the fast letdown quite well. We were given some feeding position tips - lying back, if they pull away use a clean muslin to help stem the flow before they relatch and we do some feeds lying down.

It has taken a lot of tooing and froing from hv to gp to infant feeding back to gp several times and we still aren't quite sorted yet. It's so difficult when they can't tell you what's s wrong. It's been trial and error to get where we are now

@Superscientist it’s so difficult isn’t it?! I’m glad you’re on your way to being sorted 😊
HV visits have been stopped in my area - it’s all phone check ups. I phoned and asked her to come in last week because I was concerned about his weight and he’s dropped a centile between weeks 6-10 for weight. She’s coming back in 2 weeks to weigh him again. When I phoned the gp I asked for DS to be seen but they would only do phone consultation. I questioned whether it could be issue with let down etc but they just automatically said “probably reflux, I’ll send a prescription to the pharmacy” 😔
Think I’ll have a look online and see if I can get a private breastfeeding consultant near me. We got no help in the hospital when he was born either due to covid 🙄

Hi!! Any update on what was the cause of this? I’m dealing with the exact same thing.

I was on this thread with my baby. She's now 4 and has severe silent reflux and is still on omperazole and gaviscon we started when she was a newborn. At 8 months domperidone was added which made a big difference. She also has 20 food allergies. To improve her feeding we had to manage both the allergies and reflux.
I think in hindsight the tongue tie assessments were poor and I think she does have a tie. She has very good movement in and out but is more restricted in her up and down movement. I don't know how much that would have had an impact on our early feeding journey!