Gassy, sicky, screamy baby - trying dairy free

[beowulf]

My 14wo DS2 has always been a bit colicky in the early evenings, but for the last month has been screamy for quite a lot of the rest of the day, too. He's very fussy when he feeds, and also super-gassy, producing very explosive poos. He brings up a tablespoon or two after most feeds.

I thought it was reflux but a GP and HV have told me it's not: just colic, so I'm desperate to find something that'll help him. I've decided to cut all dairy products out of my diet (I forgot to mention he's breastfed) as that seems to be the most common suggestion after infacol and gripe water, for relieving colic. Has anyone else tried this and had success? Only one day into it and I'm already missing cheese

Hi - my DS is 8 weeks old but sounds similar to yours in that he was very colicky and seemed in distress (red face, screaming) a lot of the time. I'd had a look through some old MN posts and had found one on 'one-sided breastfeeding' which I tried and found useful - it was meant for mums that had a good/over supply of milk. Basically you feed your DC from one side for 6 hours then swap to the other side - so that they get the richer hindmilk as opposed to too much foremilk which I think makes colic worse. Sorry if I haven't explained this very well, I'll try to find a link to the older post, or perhaps someone else can explain a bit more clearly

Thanks weeglenny - I'm already on the one-sided feeding - I should have mentioned it - it's made a difference to the pukiness I think, but not affected the general windy / screamy side of things.

DD had very bad colic and the only thing that would help was colief DD was bf and I could never get her to wind so had the same explosive poos as your ds. Colief certainly helped her burp more and the change was almost overnight. I used to hand express a teaspoon full of bm and then add the drops to that and spoonfeed then to her before a bf.

Subsequently we found out that she is allergic to dairy so she would have been reacting to the lactose in my bm and diet.

This sounds like my dd.

She was a very sicky baby, vomiting after every feed and she screamed till she was 12 weeks. We were told it was colic at first, then reflux, it turned out she just had problems bringing up her wind. I gave up dairy and wheat but it made no difference after a month. In the end we went onto infacol which started to work after a week, she was on it until 6 months when she started to take an interest in solids. I don't know if it was the solids or the fact she was strong enough to be able to handle her wind that fixed it.

A trick that worked for us was to hold your ds very close to you making sure your supporting his head then drop your knees out quickly so ds has a moment of weightlessness. You don't need to go all the way into a squat but it's good exercise if you can

Other than that I would just hold my dd and dance around to very loud Shirley Bassey. I think the movement helped the wind and she obviously liked old Shirl!

I understand a crying baby is just heartbreaking.

Message withdrawn

Yes. I went dairy free when dd was 15 weeks, and it made a tremendous difference, as she turned out to be milk intolerant. She has recently outgrown this (now 21 months), so I'm now back eating dairy again - hurrah!

Agree that you need to keep it up for a couple of weeks before you assess the results.

(Tis CantSleepWontSleep here, but am on dh's login)

I went cow dairy free so ate goat's milk and cheese. Missed cheddar like nothing else. Lived off fairy cakes made with dairy-free magarine and dark chocolate chips. It's great for losing weight though! Good webpage listing all ingredients to look out for on labels here.

Hi,

Hope the dairy free goes well- I have been using goats milk products local shop has full range of butters/milk/cheese for a few weeks now. My 6 month old DS has reflux but is gassy, screamy and I have to carry him around most of the time or he is in discomfort/ vomits tablespoons+ each feed.

He has seemed to improve but is on Zantac for his reflux so not sure what has helped! He also has eczema and all DH side of family had bad eczema which improved after going dairy free so thought would try dairy free for both reasons.

How did your GP/HV rule out reflux- there could be many reasons for your LO's probs but many refluxy babies are labelled colicky and with the screaming most of the day and vomiting after each feed I wonder if that could be the case.

Hope it goes well- If goats milk isnt a good alternative someone let me know please!!! Although will be devastated....

Ps also used baby bjorn to carry LO around.

Yes, I have done it. DS is very nearly 7 now and still dairy-free, still has goats milk (he had this from around 20mo, when he wasnt bf any more.

well done for trying to figure it all out at this early stage. It is minefield and a huge puzzle to suss out but well worth it for your DS. good luck.

Another fan of cranial osteopathy and dairy free diet here. It wasn't reflux with us but other allergy symptoms, watery eyes, raspy breathing and excema. It really worked.

I tried goats milk products as well but that still seemed to affect him. Every so often I slip up and have ordinary cake or tea and his symptoms soon return. There are loads od good alternatives now for most stuff. Cheese is the hard one but you do get to the point where it would be weird to put cheese on things and ordinary butter tastes quite sour now, almost acidic. Good luck with it.

Hi,

Bu*r!-No didnt want to hear about the goats milk protein! I did try going completely dairy free using oats/rice milk and soy spreads for few weeks but not much benefit. Unfortunately I found out that many of the babies who are cow's milk protein intolerant are at a higher chance of reacting to soy proteins as well. It gets a bit difficult as there is always something you could possibly consider cutting out of your diet.

I was mainly cutting out cows milk as there is a history of cows milk aggrevating eczema in my husbands family and LO has eczema too. When his reflux/puking feeding difficulties didnt improve being dairy free I went onto the goats milk.

Your GP is wrong about the puking bit- it doesnt have to be hours after that babies with reflux bring it up. Mine puked during feeds, after and could bring up stuff at any point in between. Having been reading up on a support site www.littlerefluxers.co.uk (and others)there seems to be a variety of symptoms which is why it is often misdiagnosed. I am lucky DS is not as symptomatic as some on the site.

Hope the dairy free works tho!

I also had a really colicky baby. After weeks of struggling I took him to a cranial osteopath & wished I done it sooner. Wow what a difference after 1 session. We had 4 sessions in the end & never looked back. If you can afford to go I would certainly recommend it!

Does low dairy help at all or does it have to be completely dairy free? (Obviously free is going to be better but...)

I have cut out milk, cheese and yogurt this weekend, but have fallen down on the chocolate side of things. Just wondering if I should see some improvement at all with a cut down rather than a cut out.

Agree with Davidsmom about the lack of sickness. We don't have puking (much) and weight gain is fine and specialist was pretty clear straight away that DS has it based on his other symptoms.

I'd forgotten about those green mucousy poos, they stopped when I cut out dairy too.