Food you eat affecting breastmilk..how long does it take?

[OzJo]

Dear All, I have a gorgeous 3 week old son, who has breastfed 2 hourly since birth...he was 10 lb 01 oz at birth..so a big hungry lad. Anyway, he gets bad wind at times and I'm not sure if this is related to anything I'm eating, as it varies in time of day/night that he suffers. I'm prone to think he will get a bit windy whatever I do, perhaps he swallows some air when feeding sometimes. I've been told to aviod eating that many types of food there would be nothing left for me to eat if I took al the advice.
So, how long does it take for something that I eat to affect my breast milk? Any ideas anyone?

I'd look at positioning before I started fiddling around with my diet if I had a 3 week old baby. And this is coming from a woman who hasn't eaten eggs for 2 years because ds is allergic to them. When bottlefed babies get windy - nobody asks what the cows ate.

I agree, bobbybob....the links between diet and bf exist, but they are hugely mythologised (IMHO). Any unexplained crying in a newborn is ascribed to wind, and then breastmilk is seen as a possible culprit. Speak to someone who knows about bf, OzJo, before you start cuttng stuff out of your diet.

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In such a young baby the improvement could be coincidence if you start to miss things out of your diet.

I would start to take probiotics yourself, as there is evidence that these come through breaskmilk and will help you ds's gut. I would also take a couple of falx seed oil tablets as they help the probiotics work. I would add these and then wait until 12 weeks (when colic is supposed to get better).

One of my friends spaced feeds out more and solved the problem - but then you wouldn't want to do that with a 3 week old.

Read the fussy baby by Dr Sears while you feed. it made me feel so much better, and have confidence in what you are doing.

Sorry should be flax seed oil tablets.

My DS had awful wind and it was worse when I ate citrus fruits and grapes. It gets better as they get older!

Thanks folks, I think he's just going to be unsettled in the evenings for a while. I read a good thing in the Robin Barker book, re, try not to analyse why your baby does this/ that / the other, and focus on working out how to cope with it, chances are you'll never know exactly why they are doing a particular thing.
I'll get some yalult though, won't do any harm!