CMPA and food intolerances HELP

[iamverytired]

Baby is 4 months, breastfed and has never slept well due to gassiness/straining to poo most nights. He started with green mucousy nappies around 2 weeks old, which have been extremely green, smelly and barely a yellow seedy nappy in sight. We have improved since cutting out various foods but the mucous remains, still often green and in the last 2 weeks after 1am he will not lay flat and wakes immediately so I've been sleeping upright with him for hours and not getting much sleep. In the last 2 weeks he has also started crying and pulling away when feeding, which I suspect is discomfort as he is swallowing more air, maybe reflux, or just trying to poo, but could be teething, overtired or 4 month fussiness?? Who knows. He is more comfortable sitting upright or laying flat in bed feeding so I'm not sure. I rang the health visitor yesterday and they are coming out to do a feeding assessment but I'm not sure when - still waiting for a call. I have also spoken to the dietician who has referred us to a paediatrician as I've cut out so much and still having issues. Again not sure how long that will take but I'm so desperate to stop the gassiness and discomfort and get some sleep. I've had enough. I thought I might get some advice from the dietician as I was hanging on that appointment helping after a 3 week wait but she just said she couldn't advise me to cut anything else as my diet was already so limited. I keep crying when my baby is feeding as he seems so uncomfortable and I want to stop eating whatever is causing the problem.

I've been free from the following -

Dairy - 8 weeks
Soy - 6 weeks
Egg - 5 weeks
Nuts - 5 weeks (apart from hazelnut when I had galaxy vegan 2 weeks ago and think he reacted to that)
Beef - 4 weeks
Fish - 3 weeks
Tomato/strawberries and bananas - nearly 4 weeks

I barely ate any wheat as I'm intolerant but I've made sure I've stopped that now fully for the last week too, and in case it's oats I've switched to coconut milk for a week as well. I'm convinced green veg sets him off, so I don't know whether I should just stop that as well (starting to think that's what turns his poo dark green), but what do I do? How do I keep cutting things? And what should I stop. I used to eat a lot of fruit and veg and now I'm paranoid it's that. Had a perfect nappy after Christmas when I ate unhealthily for 2 days, and then another after an unhealthy weekend which is why I think the fruit/veg might be to do with it. I'm not cooking with onion, limiting garlic. All the foods I've cut have been after a bad day but I'm well aware I've probably cut some unnecessarily, but I can't test any of them if I don't get back to a normal nappy. I can't wait another month or more for the referral. And I don't want to resort to formula which by all accounts is disgusting and he probably wont drink anyway. Help 😩

Hi - it sounds like you're having a really tough time! Here's my experience if it helps at all.

DD also had green mucousy stools and they were also frothy at the start. My paediatrician said that can often be due to an excess of lactase in breast milk - in essence DD was getting too much fore milk and not enough hind milk which has the fat which makes the seedy aspect of breastfed baby poo. This was due in part due to an oversupply problem.

We fixed it by only offering one breast at each feed (I kept a little journal to remember which breast I had given last) and also expressing a little milk off before - I used to hand express for 5 minutes before each feed and throw that milk away but you could keep and freeze it.

Her stools were still mucousy on and off but came back to the mustard yellow colour most of the time. We also were prescribed Gaviscon which helped with the thrashing around which was actually due to reflux. Biogaia probiotics also helped.

I didn't cut out anything from my diet and DD is 5 months now and so much better. Might be worth trying if you aren't getting anywhere on an elimination diet. It's important for you to eat well to which just be tough with so much cut out!

Good luck to you!

Oh and I also had the pulling away and arching when feeding - I just had to accept that sometimes she wasn't in the mood for a feed. I just waited for a bit and came back to it and usually it went better. And then sometimes she just didn't eat more than a couple of minutes. But she usually caught up later.

And yes to keeping them upright afterwards, I used to do it for 30 minutes after each feed and it really helped with sleep.

Not much advice but I've got a 6 month old and I'm currently dairy, soya, egg, tomato, red pepper and coconut free.
Her main symptoms are silent reflux and screaming in discomfort. We are on high doses of omperazole and gaviscon too.

Thanks @kersh33, I have considered the foremilk/hindmilk imbalance and have tried to offer one breast at a time for longer. I definitely don't think I have an oversupply and have seen obvious reactions with certain food, its just working out what else I'm missing is the issue. Although I would still consider another issue is causing problems too if it helped us get back to normal! Another night of no sleep for me after 1am, and poo turning from yellow back to green. I feel like vegetables may be the cause of the green sometimes, but then on my food diary some days I've eaten the same ones and had no reaction. I had gluten free pasta last night and that has maize in it so if corn is the only allergen I haven't tried to cut then I'm screwed. I can't cut them all. Yet.

@Superscientist have you improved from cutting the foods? Sorry to hear you have issues too

We have, we cut out dairy and soya mid December but had medications increased at the same time so it was hard to say whether the diet or the meds were responsible for the improvement.
In January we started to go backwards and I had a look what was different in my food diaries and found I was eating more tomatoes and coconut so I cut them out as well as egg as this is also common allergen and I have seen a big improvement again.
Our intention is to test each in turn, I have started with egg as that was the one I was least sure about. I had a big portion of coleslaw and she was bad the next day. I'm testing cooked egg today as I would like to reintroduce eggs if possible. We have started weaning and we had a reaction to red pepper which is closely related to tomatoes. As she had this directly it was a quicker response within a few hours of eating it she was crying, refusing to feed and couldn't be put down. So I will be testing coconut before tomatoes.
I have also been limiting the amount of other legumes we are eating, we are mostly vegetarian so had a habit of throwing them in every dish. We haven't cut them out but we are trying to not have lots of different beans and not adding them to meals that don't need them. I noticed a connection between me eating baked beans and her symptoms but that could be the tomato sauce.