Help! Nocturnal reflux? Baby is 5 days old

[Dmfo]

Hoping I’m not the only one who has been through this as it’s frustrating and upsetting!

I gave birth to our 3rd child 5 days ago, and the first night in hospital wasn’t too bad. He slept relatively well and nursed 3/4 times through the night, but was very quiet and didn’t seem fussed much. Since we have been home it has been a different story. During the day he is totally fine - sleeps in his basket, has feeds every 2-4 hours, is weeing and pooing fine, and usually sleeps for a couple hours at a time minimum. By night, it’s like he’s a completely different baby. He seems in a lot of pain (arching his back, shrill screaming cry, gas seems a lot worse). We’ve had a few nights now of going through to about 4am of constant discomfort and stirring before he finally settles and sleeps for a longer stretch. For example, he finally settled at around 5.30am this morning after a feed, and then slept all the way until 9am! Has since been asleep since his feed until now. He is exclusively breastfed - I do have a massive oversupply in case it’s worth noting.

appreciate it’s a long post but I’ve never had this with any of my babies so I’m struggling 😢 any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Hi, firstly, congratulations!

My LO is now three months old and was the same in the first few weeks. She seemed to want comfort by sucking, but that resulted in her having more milk than her tummy could handle. It's not much help when you're in the trenches but it will get better.

I also had a slight over supply and have a fast letdown, so would either give a dummy when I thought she would be full, which I know is not advisable ordinarily, or I would only offer one side, which is also not advisable. I breastfed my first until they were nearly 18 months old and with the over supply too, I felt confident I'd be able to ramp up supply if needed, it was just horrible seeing her so sad that I felt it was the better option. I just made sure I fed her a lot in the day and then kept her upright afterwards.

Despite what I did not being advisable, she did seem to settle better and have less pain in the latter part of the night, and I don't have any supply issues now. She's growing v.well and in fact it seems my supply has finally settled down and I'm no longer leaking every feed!

Thank you so much for your reply. Yes the last couple of nights I’ve given the dummy more and made sure to keep him upright for at least 20 mins after he’s eaten, which seems to have helped a little. I’ll keep trying and see how I go 🤞🏽

This was how my daughters reflux and food allergies first presented. She was awful to feed at 3 am by 12 weeks it was every feed!

Sorry to hear :( Thank you for your comment, I’ll bear it in mind if it persists. How is your daughter now?

@Dmfo it's been a complicated journey as she's not a typical child so she's 4 and hasn't outgrown her reflux nor her allergies. She is so much better than those early days but things aren't always easy.

There are lots of other reasons we went down the route of slow let down, fast letdowns, tongue tie, oversupply plus others. She does possibly have a tongue tie but it wasn't apparent as a baby it's only as she has moved through toddler life that we can see she has less mobility up and down than she does in and out. She predominantly moved her tongue in and out as a baby so it looked like she had good mobility. She's a covid baby so it was a tricky time for getting good advice! She was 17 weeks before we started down the allergy route and got adequate reflux treatment!

Ahh bless her, sounds like you’ve both been through it. I’m really hoping it’s something he outgrows but it’s helpful for me to keep my eyes peeled for a variety of symptoms down the line and make sure I’ve tried everything I can to help the situation 🤞🏽