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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

CMPA milk

7 replies

solbunny · 17/12/2021 21:26

Hi everyone,

I'm having such a stressful time with my four week old baby. We've been desperately trying to breastfeed since he was born, but we keep coming into challenges and it's unbearably painful. We've seen multiple lactation consultants, had his tongue tie fixed, tried to express as much milk as possible to bottle feed him. However we've still had to top up about 50% with Hipp organic formula since day 5, and even so he's struggling with weight gain.

I'm going to express as much milk as possible to feed him, but I can't keep seeing him struggling to put on weight for the sake of my desire to breastfeed, so we're looking to move to basically completely formula fed.

The problem is that he's been showing most of the symptoms of CMPA. He really does seem in such pain every single moment he's awake. It's awful to see. I really want to try a EHF formula as I've seen on the NICE guidelines that this is the first line of treatment. The problem is that I've recently moved to a new area and went to register with my new GP today - they told me they need a whole week (!) to process my registration, and only then will they even entertain the idea of me making an appointment. Obviously this will take me until after christmas! I can't bare to see my baby in pain without trying to do something to help.

I've found that I can buy Aptamil Pepti 1 from online chemists - would this be a bad idea to give my baby this formula without the "supervision of a doctor" as it says on the website? I just can't bare to wait without even trying anything, I can cope with the sickness and the endless diarrhoea, but I just can't bare to see him writhing in pain all day every day for much longer.

OP posts:
IDontDrinkTea · 17/12/2021 21:29

It’s not a bad idea to try it - but it will cost you a fortune. CMPA formula is about triple the price. Could you ring the GP and try to speed up the process by telling them you need an urgent appt for a baby? Or try OOH?

Twizbe · 17/12/2021 21:38

See if you can push things along as it's for your baby not you. They try to see babies much quicker.

My son has CMPA and had bad weight gain in the early weeks.

He lost quite a bit and then took an age to put anything on. He still wasn't at birth weight by 5 weeks and we were in and out of hospital. They couldn't find out why he didn't put weight on quickly.

I tried formula, but after every bottle he'd projectile vomit. He was always find after my milk.

We saw an amazing dietician who actually diagnosed it and gave us the pepti. She also helped us with early weaning which was the single best thing we did for him.

We ended up combi feeding with pepti and the dietician was very keen for me to keep feeding as much as I could myself as he didn't react to that milk.

solbunny · 19/12/2021 16:30

Thanks both, the GP wont budge so I've ordered a tub of the formula online to last me until I can get an appointment after christmas - fingers crossed this helps him! X

OP posts:
Twizbe · 19/12/2021 17:32

@solbunny

Thanks both, the GP wont budge so I've ordered a tub of the formula online to last me until I can get an appointment after christmas - fingers crossed this helps him! X
Hopefully it will help.

Be warned - it stinks! The smell and flavour never bothered my son but some babies take a while to like it. I'm told a dash of vanilla essence in it can help.

GemmaRuby · 19/12/2021 17:35

We have nutramigen, it smells horrible.
If your baby won’t drink it, mix it with the current formula to start with and gradually increase the proportion each feed so he gets used to the taste.

GemmaRuby · 19/12/2021 17:37

Also have you tried infacol or dentinox (much cheaper than infacol) - just add it to the milk and it helps bring up wind.

thismotherhoodthing · 28/12/2021 01:17

Call 111. We did this, got an out of hours appointment and were sent to paediatrics last here they gave us nutramigen. We then went back to Gp and asked for repeat prescription. She's now on Neocate and we're still not sorted but it was a lot quicker than waiting for GP appointment

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