Eliminating foods from breastfeeding mother's diet in an attempt to ease baby's colic and windiness - worth it?

[Sariska]

My HV has suggested that things in my diet could be contributing to my 8 week old DS's appalling colic and windiness. Some days he screams virtually non-stop and is inconsolable, which is very distressing for him and me but yet on others he is fine. He is also a restless and very erratic sleeper, which is perhaps connected. I already give him infacol (although it seems to make no difference), wind him a couple of times during each feed as well as at the end and try to keep him upright for 20 mins or so at the end of a feed. We are also seeing a cranial osteopath, which seems to have at least a temporary positive effect. If my diet is at least partially to blame, the list of potential allergens in my diet seems huge (brassicas, tomatoes, onions, garlic, citrus fruits, dairy etc) and is particularly concerning because I am vegetarian. Does anyone have any experience of playing detective and eliminating things from their diet for a period of time? Is it worth it? And is there a most likely culprit? My best guess is that - if there is an allergen issue - it could be dairy because my SIL and her daughter both had a cow's milk allergy as small children.

Also, although DS is exclusively breastfed and I am keen to keep it that way, I was hoping to get him to take the occasional bottle of EBM. I assume I should postpone this experiment until the colic improves as I have heard that bottle fed babies can take in more air, thus worsening colicky symptoms - is this right?

Any advice welcomed: this is all getting a bit much for me!

My first baby was very colicky - at least, that's what we put her crying down to at the time - and we used Infacol. I did not adjust my diet at the time and she was exclusively bf. She calmed down after a bit but has never been a very good sleeper. The early "colic" could easily have been hunger - when first put on to solids she gained 19 oz in a week and has loved her food ever since.

I think you would be better concentrating on the cranial osteopath and making sure he doesn't take in too much air while feeding, by checking position at the breast. Is he a noisy feeder? Glug glug, slurp etc?

Diet is often blamed but rarely proved to be the cause of colic and babies often grow out of it anyway.

no caffine sweetie, cut out tea /coffee and choc.
then start on the big food groups such as dairy..........
carry on with the cranial stuff, does take time to work. gets worse before getting better.

is ds putting on weight?

I droppped citrus - specifically my morning glass of OJ. Seemed to help ds's mid morning screamy patch and for what its worth I felt better for it as well! Full of sugar that stuff.

Also avoided caffeine and spicy stuff.

Also avoided heavy amounts of sugar before a feed - no biscuits were allowed until afterwards!

Its a tough one, yes lots of things in the diet can make it worse but
a) it will get better by itself even if you do nothing (symptoms generally improve around 12-14 weeks or so)
b) There are generally too many other things that cause it - your stress, how much lactose is in your milk, your babies mood for an elimination diet to give any clear results. By the time you have eliminated brassicas for example, the colic will be getting better
c) Your health, diet and well being are really important. If you are stressing about having to get a balanced diet with no milk and cheese, you are less able to be relaxed with your lo

• you can tell i am speaking from experience! I would not bother and just ride it out with loads of baby wearing rocking and Bach on the CD player

Your HV has neglected to point out that your DSs colicky behaviour is largely behavioural.

Other than a dairy allergy, eliminating brassicas, citrus etc has never been clinically shown to cause 'wind' in newborns.

At this age, 'colicky' babies have been shown to have no more gas in thir gut than settled babies.

Do you have fast let-down? Try to express off a wee bit of milk before feeding and feed your DS in a slightly sitting up position - you can get pics of this by googling

I can highly recommend Dr Harvey Karp's book, 'The Happiest Baby on the Block'. In a nutshell, he recommends what he calls the '5 Ss' to settle a fussy baby:

1. Swaddling
2. Side or Stomach (never put a screaming baby on their back)
3. SSSSSh - white noise (louder than baby's cry)
4. Swing/Shoogle - quite fast, with small movements
5. Suck - soother or breast

screaming comes in 2-3 cycles before they settle

don't attempt this if your baby has reflux

hope it improves!

Yes, baby is putting on weight. He was 6lbs 12oz at birth and is now almost 11lbs - so no worries there! Judging by your replies, by the time I worked out what (if anything) in my diet is affecting him, he may well have improved anyway so perhaps I'll just concentrate on the cranial osteopathy, good winding, feeding position and the 5 Ss (I have that book too - and DS seems particularly addicted to white noise). Might be good for me, though, to ditch the OJ and caffeine!

I think you've got the right approach Sariska.

The only thing that is proved to have an effect is dairy and if that makes a difference it's because LO has a cows milk intolerance. This was the case with my DS2 and I was so sceptical about it that it took me until he was 4 months to cut out of my diet. MY in hindsight how I wished I'd done it earlier!

"it could be dairy because my SIL and her daughter both had a cow's milk allergy as small children."

The excellent paed that we ended up seeing said that cow's milk intolerance (which is different to cow's milk allergy) is very common and definitely runs in families.

Have every sympathy, went through the same with my second. I think Highlander is right - it is not what's in your milk that is the problem.

I too had a very fast let down (poor boy would be drowned in milk) and fed him all the time because it was the only thing that comforted (or shut him up more like) but discovered that that was in fact making him worse. We did infacol, craneal osteopathy, breast feeding teas - all to no avail.

My mother (an ex midwife) kept telling me it was an immature gut and once he'd grown a bit, he would be OK. I ignored her and threw money and time and effort and endless research into it for weeks.... and then he stopped. No reason for it, just his digestive system got better at coping with milk, gas, whatever it was and he stopped crying. It is all a haze now - you and your poor boy will get past it, trust me. It's just such hell while you're going through it.

Hi Sariska, my DD was also incredibly colicky to begin with, like you I am a vegetarian so was loath to cut out dairy as cheese is one of my main sources of protein!

A friend of mine recommended drinking a pro-biotic drink daily and as anything was worth a try at that point I started drinking Actimel. Within a few days DD was much less colicky and only a little unsettled in the evenings and within a couple of weeks she was fine! I don't know for sure it is the Actimel but on days when I forget to drink one at breakfast she is more unsettled in the evenings again. I guess the pro-biotics come through in my milk and she gets some benefit from them perhaps? It seems to be working well for a friend of mine also who had a very colicky baby.

"it is not what's in your milk that is the problem."

but it could be dairy so I'd be wary of saying that outright.

katierocket I think the incidence of cows milk intolerance is actually very small and is one of the things that tends to be over diagnosed in children. Yes if I were the op I might delay the introduction of dairy in food when weaning but if I was breastfeeding as a vegitarian I would think really realy hard about giving up dairy

Have you thought of substituting goats milk for cows?