Throwing up after every feed

[LivelyGoose]

As the title suggests, my baby is vomiting up his entire feed every single feed. He's 15 weeks old and it's only started in the last week or so. We pace feed him slowly and upright, burp him regularly throughout each feed, keep him upright for half an hour afterwards, only use Dr Brown colic bottles, etc, but he just blows like a volcano every time even if he's burped really well. It's usually a little while after the feed that he's sick and theres no indication beforehand that anything is wrong. He seems well and happy in himself. I'm wondering if there's an underlying problem causing it? I have a dairy intolerance and wonder if he perhaps does too as he's exclusively formula fed? Has anyone else had this with their baby? He's still wetting and dirtying his nappies and I don't think he's losing weight, though our health visitor appears to have gone awol and he hasn't been weighed in a while so can't be sure.

I've obviously already googled the problem so would appreciate responses from people who have experienced this themselves rather than well intended guesses from those who haven't (not meaning to sound rude, I just want decent Intel from those in the know because it's a stressful situation and I want to solve it quickly). He's going for his 12 week vaxes and check up the day after tomorrow, (they were delayed because he had the flu over Christmas and it went on forever) so I'll obviously make sure I ask the GP then, but in the meantime I thought someone here might have some decent info or advice.

Tysm x

My dd did this and she had tongue tie so she was getting too much air when she had her milk.

once this was sorted she was fine .

So advice I had from a midwife (one of mine suffered with reflux from birth) was that it always looks like much more than it is when they vomit. If your baby is still having the usual amount of wet and dirty nappies, and you don’t think he’s losing weight, then there’s no way he’s bringing up anything close to the entire feed every single feed. If he were then he would need to be hospitalised within 24 hours for dehydration. With my DS we never really got to the bottom of it, we tried carobel but it didn’t agree with him, and after that since he fell into the happy puker category and was gaining weight well, slept well etc. we just left it, accepted it meant a lot of laundry then started weaning a bit earlier at 5 months and from then on he was fine. It did turn out though that he had a tongue tie that was missed by all the midwives and the paediatrician in the hospital- we took him to speech therapist at 3 because he couldn’t say certain sounds and she spotted it. So thinking back maybe that was it.

@Porkyporkchop Thanks for responding. He had a tongue tie too but got it fixed at a week old. The vomiting problem is a new one.

Bingo. We were told the same. OP I know it is stressful and the baby might be vomiting a lot but it isn’t the ‘entire’ feed if your baby still has wet nappies.

Breathe and ask the doctor tomorrow.

@InTheRainOnATrain Thank you. He did actually have a tongue tie but got it fixed at a week old. He's 15 weeks now and this is a new problem that's just started this week. Our health visitor has said the same thing about it looking like more vomit than it actually is, but trust me when I say it is LOADS and it's every, single time. It's so incredibly stressful at night as he has two or three night feeds and it takes forever to feed him and burp him and then inevitably end up changing all his sleepwear etc. We're up for hours every night and I'm exhausted and have no energy to look after him in the day. We go through dozens of bibs and muslin squares a day. I'm getting very little enjoyment out of parenting right now and every time he needs a feed I feel myself tense up and panic as I feel like I'm going into battle 😫

Is there any chance the tongue tie could have reattached? It can happen

It looks fine, he sticks his tongue out and latches really well. I don't think it's that.

Reflux peaks at 4 months!

One of the babies in my NCT group frequently projectile vomited but was happy and gained weight and grew really well so it was a mop and bucket problem.

My daughter was sick 4-5 times each feed but was miserable and also had silent reflux. She gained weight ok but she cried all day so needed high dose reflux treatment and had multiple food allergies

My sister projectile vomited every single feed and at 10 weeks was less than 1lb over birth weight and was readmitted for re feeding with thickened feeds and very early weaning. It didn't resolve until she was 2 and she was under the 0.4th percentile until she was 1. She continued to be frequently sick until she went vegan at 40. We think she probably had a dairy allergy like my daughter.

When it comes to managing reflux weight gain and how happy the baby is can dictate treatment. My daughter was sick less than the other baby in our group but she was happy and my baby wasn't so my daughter needed treatment and she didn't. My sister was a mostly happy baby but wasn't retaining enough milk to put on any weight she was only 7lb 10 at 10 weeks so she needed treatment. It was the 80s so there wasn't much on offer.

Step 1 is determining if its problematic reflux. Are they following their line? Are they happy. If so behavioural adjustments keeping them upright after a feed, pacing feeding etc.

My daughter actually couldn't be moved to the upright position without being sick so what we needed to do was keep her the same position she was fed in.

It might be worth getting the tongue tie checked again, it might have reattached. My daughter can stick her tongue out fine and in fact can touch her nose with her tongue but she struggles to lift her tongue to the roof of her mouth! The tongue time assessments she had only looked at in our mobility. I am not sure if she has a tie but I'm not longer confident that the assessments we did have when she was a baby were adequate to determine if she has a tie or not.

Step 2 thicken liquids - gaviscon and carobel are probably the most common. They can cause constipation my daughter also needed a stool softener because of this. You might consider thickening liquids even if you decide it's not problematic reflux it's worth a discussion with the GP or HV for advice

Step 3. Omperazole on prescription which reduces the acidity of the vomit and can helped reduce the reflux too.

Then it's looking at things like cmpa. It is worth talking through the possibility of cmpa with your GP if you struggle with dairy too. There can be family links with allergies

Could it be a vomiting bug? There are loads going round. When weve had them in our house, they've lasted about 2 weeks..Both my DDs had reflux (and one had a severe tongue tie) but it was apparent well before 15weeks (and sorted with gavsicon). It sounds like it has come on really quick and if he was run down from the flu, maybe he was a bit susceptible to picking something else up? Babies can also become more vomity after having a bug, which then resolves in 2-3weeks - something about not being able to tolerate the enzymes as well(?). This happened to us after DD2 had a nasty diarrhoea bug brought home from nursery by DD1.

You can get secondary lactose intolerance after a vomiting bug which might be why it's changed too. It should be temporary in this case.

I'm just so, so fed up with it. I'm stuck indoors because I can't feed him while we're out because he just spews all over himself, and me, and whatever else is nearby. The night feeds are torture. I'm so tired and so miserable and I just don't want to have to look after him at the moment. I know it sounds awful. He was planned and so wanted and I had fertility problems and a previous miscarriage and now he's here I'm just miserable because I spend all my time jiggling and burping and and mopping up sick and doing laundry. He can't even do tummy time because he vomits and rubs his face in it so he's getting a flat head. I just feel totally done in.

Both of mine were like this. Once I was in a cafe and I had to catch it in a cup, it overflowed the latte glass 😱

What we did was buy towelling muslins that were thicker
Pace fed very very slowly. Held baby upright for twenty mins after feed. Very careful burping... And eventually they grew out of it. With them I think it was reflux but no one cares about that unless they're not gaining weight etc, but they were both 99 percentile so they had to drop a long way before anyone was bothered really.

Sitting with them leaning on your stomach counts as tummy time. They should learn to pull their head away from your chest. This was the only form of tummy time with my daughter we managed to do but she was rarely out of my arms so she did for about 12h a day.

It's probably worth a chat with the GP. I agree with @Threeandahalf its hard to get gps to listen despite my daughter mostly being a very unhappy silent refluxer her gp used to tell me it was a washing problem. She was on the 9th percentile but moved up to the 35th when reflux was properly treated and her allergies identified. We eventually saw a paediatrician for something else at 17 weeks and that's when things turned around for us

@Superscientist He won't do tummy time on our chests, he gets really angry and screams in our faces and still throws up. I cannot understand why nature would create such ridiculous problems for us to contend with whilst we are simply trying to keep our children alive?!!

It wasn't a problem until the advice switched to sleeping on their back. Prior to that babies got enough practice in the moments after waking/during the night so it wasn't something that had to be encouraged until the late 90s when they realised that babies head control was getting delayed since the change in sleep advice.
Don't stress it! They all get there in the end!

@Superscientist They changed the advice because front sleeping is a SIDS risk. My baby can roll from his front to his back and has excellent head control. He just hates tummy time and it makes him throw up.

I know that is why the sleep advice changed but an unexpected consequence of that was babies spent less time on their tummys and as a result gaining head control slowed down. As a result they introduced "tummy time" to give babies more time on their stomach the strengthen neck muscles. Go back 30 years no mother will have ever had tummy time mentioned to them! Over the course of 24h they naturally had enough time on their tummys. The benefits of tummy time are on a natural level. With Tummy time the national average of gaining head control is in keeping with when sleep advice was on their front. There are many babies with reflux where tummy time is counter productive because of making reflux worse and they will get head control on their own time

The purpose of tummy time is to help them gaining the head control. If he has good head control there's no need to keep up with the tummy time.

Mine had this and she had reflux and was lactose intolerant. So changed to Similac Isomil, not sure if you get that in the UK. Pediatrician prescribed Nexium for the reflux which has done wonders.

*benefits are on a "national" not "natural" level

Hey wondering if you found out what the problem was, as my son is doing similar