colic or silent reflux or cmpi in 6 week old

[wondermoose13]

Hi all,
Apologies in advance for the long post!
My 6 week old has been crying/screaming constantly unless feeding since he was 2 weeks old.
He has seemed congested when lying on his back, and rarely sleeps unless hes being held. When he does sleep he often wakes himself up with his arms and legs tensing/fists clenched and seems to be uncomfortable/in pain
He is breastfed and feeding has become more irratic recently as he had a small posterior tongue tie cut.
He has very watery poo sometimes a little mucous sometimes a lot/one big blob of mucous. Colour varies from brown to orange to a few bright green ones on weds that had blood in so we went to GP who suggested removing dairy from my diet which has been absolute hell as i swear chocolate was the only thing keeping me sane, plus i cant put him down during the day without him screaming the place down so i really dont have time to be making breakfast/lunch from scratch for a dairy free diet :(
Hes started arching his back right back when i feed him, and he seems to get very frustrated once hes had the foremilk and has to work for the hind milk so hes hungry often.
So i dont know if the milk imbalance is causing the watery/mucousy poo or if its cmpi.
weve been using dentinox for colic as he started this crying phase by crying constantly from 7 to 10pm, but it quickly became all day, sometimes it seems to help as he burps/trumps quickly after but not always.
He is sick maybe once a day, but tends to dribble milk out the side of his mouth when im feeding him, or just doesnt swallow it as i keep ending up soaked during feeds, so im convinced part of the crying must be hunger
We're back at the GP on tuesday to see if dairy elimination has helped but i feel like they keep fobbing me off with "you're a first time mum, babies cry" and believe me i wouldn't be half as worried if he didnt seem in agony when he screams, he goes bright red, gets really sweaty and screams that hard hes gasping for breath,
I also keep getting told that babies are a lot calmer after 6-8 weeks so i should start seeing an improvement soon, but i cant help thinking something is really hurting him.
if anyone has any ideas or similar experiences id really appreciate any advice on any of the above
thanks and sorry again for the long post!

sighs really getting fed up
We went to the hospital again on weds as GP thought he had a chest infection, but 2 Drs there said he didnt but they did give us ranitidine which for the first 48 hours worked like a dream, he slept in 4 hr chunks at night, fed for a good 15 minutes inbetween, had morning and afternoon naps, but then friday night it all went downhill wouldnt settle between 8 and 11pm and much harder to put down the rest of the night, back to screaming most of saturday, awake 8-1130pm, then2am-6am, really fussy at 930 and v poor feed, managed to play and entertain for a few hours with screaming only calmed by dummy, tried feeding again at 12ish as was going mental but he just wouldnt swallow it, sucked quite happily but just constant milk all over his mouth and all down me (not sure if it was sick coming back up or just not swallowing) but sooo frustrating especially considering the agony im in feeding at the moment due to his recent iffy feeds for past 2 weeks. Then he started coughing and gagging so put him on my shoulder and he fell asleep! So much so he let me carry him upstairs ans put him down which normally id be thrilled about but now im just absolutely terrified that hes barely eaten today and must be starving, so im worried about his health and his blood sugar and argh :( just dont know what to do, he needs to eat and must be starving and im going out of my mind worrying.
Weve got a review of his ranitidine on thurs back at the hospital so ill have a million questions for them to see if dose/duration etc is right but in the meantime i feel like im going crazy, the hope of sleep being taken away seems so so so much worse than when we knew he wasnt going to sleep :(

Wonder, you are 7 weeks now. That's getting to the time when clusterfeeding finishes. So maybe the end is in sight.

Keep going with the dummy to give your breasts a rest when he's just comfort sucking.

Argh i think i mustve messed up on the dairy free, really mucousy poo all weekend and the last one had flecks of blood in it and hes really unsettled. I havent had any soya milk or cheese in case im replacing one thing with another (ive not cut soya out of foods yet as waiting on Drs advice about cows milk) but i did have scrambled eggs a few days ago so now im panicking he also has an egg allergy, i really dont think i can keep bf-ing if he is allergic to eggs as well as milk / soya as i just dont know what id be able to eat :( trying not to beat myself up but feeling really down, i just hate that something im doing is causing him such pain. He is taking a dummy a bit better. Im starting to reallu hate people who have "normal" babies as they just dont understand how hard this is, and i really resent how much easier they have it in comparison :(

That sounds really hard, I hope things start to improve for all of you soon.
Is your milk letdown very fast? I ask because of what you mentioned about the not swallowing and then coughing. If this time feedings were more spaced maybe the letdown was faster than he is used to and he couldn't cope with it well. I have very fast letdown and at dome point during the first few weeks both my babies had trouble with it and would end up coughing and "choking". If you think this could be the case now, try feeding him lying down (with a towel underneath) so he can let the excess milk our of his mouth easily without coughing or spitting
I can't imagine how hard it must be for you. I know nothing about cmpi free formula, etc. but please don't feel you have to keep breast feeding at all costs if something like that could make the situation better for all concerned.

Properly fed up :( hes feeding really poorly, flat out screaming if i put him down, really wriggly and unsettled if i am holding him, hate that we had two good days last week as now it just seems so much worse to be going back to the screaming. Hes not sleeping at night unless in bed with me, the second you pick him up he goes mental. He must be absolutely exhausted, i certainly am! But im just completely out of ideas. Also really worried hes reduced my milk supply due to his bad feeds for past 48 hrs as he always seems starving :(

It is easy to confuse "hungry cry" with "tired cry".

Likewise "in pain" cry often sounds like "exhausted over tired" cry.

So while you might think the crying is because of hunger, it could be because of needing to sleep. My DD won't feed if she is too tired, so it self-perpetuates.

Do you have a bouncy chair? Repeated, continuous bouncing with a dummy in mouth has been the best way to get mine to sleep as babies.

Unfortunately he hates his bouncy chair and the rocking one but at least the rocking one eventually gets him to calm for a little while.
Is there anyway if knowing if hes hungry or any way of trying to boost my supply? Dh wants me to give up and go to formula but ive heard that can be a minefield with cmpa and i really dont want to stop bf :( feeling absolutely useless at the moment

What about 'baby wearing' - carrying him in a sling or carrier all day?

"...he always seems starving"

What is his weight doing?

How long did it take for him to regain his birth weight? Has he changed centile line since then? Is he losing weight or not gaining weight?

OP I could have written this post myself 6 weeks ago. My little one could not be out down. Constant screaming. Full of wind/colic/constipation. I kept taking him to the doctors who fobbed me off. Then he got a gastric bug, was admitted onto childrens ward and eventually was diagnosed with cmpi. It took many docs visits and hosp visits to get there though!!! DS is bottle fed though and takes neocate formula which we get on prescription. I really feel for you it's totally exhausting. Please don't feel like it's you - battle on and keep harassing the docs xx

How have you found neocate? Im worried im going to have to go on to formula because hes so fussy with feeding at the moment :s
Hes given up on any sort of day time sleeping when we'd had a reasonable pattern of 2pm naps .. even if they didnt last that long
The past few nights hes thrown up his entire 2am feed in his sleep which has then woken him up and then hes screaming through hunger, i just cant win, and last night he wouldnt settle back to sleep, i really dont understand why we got two really great days then its all gone downhill, hes now on the max dose of ranitidine and weve been advised to keep trying gaviscon but it seems to bung him up a bit so we're only giving it once at around 9pm, no idea if this is whats making him sick at 2am?
I just cant cope with him screaming in pain, we're getting towards 3weeks dairy free and its made no difference to the mucous poos or the screaming so no idea if he does have cmpi or not, he still sounds really congested all the time
Should i try and cut other things out?

Poor you.. You can keep up your milk supply by drinking lits of water
When you feed him are you putting him back on the same side that you last fed him from? i ask this because the first milk you produce is the thirst quenching milk and then you have the hind milk. If he has fed an hour ago and then you think he wants more then just put him back on that side first before moving him to the other side. There are mattresses that you can buy that are on a slope snd have a velcro strap to keep baby in kore up right position. Is there a leache lesgue group near you as they can provude breast feeding support and might have some ideas. Milk and soya are in lots of foods so the only way is to read labels which is probably the last thing you feel like doing . now. I found rhubarb really affected my ds, some people give up beans, cabbage, anything that could potentially give you wind. You have fone really well to gave got this far and you deserve a lot of credit for that. Hope things get better for you.

Thanks, i do try and put him on the sane side but hes either incredibly lazy or i just give in too easily, he only feeds well at the beginning when he doesnt have to work that hard and gets full on boob rage if he doesnt get milk instantly, i really think his mucous poos are due to a milk imbalance but despite going to countless bf groups, i cant seem to get more breast in his mouth or get him to persist with the long slow sucks, its just starting to feel like a never ending cycle at the moment

. My first born would cry an hour after being fed and then when I fed again he would throw up. It only got better for us when I started putting him back on
the same side again. I sm not an expert
but he does need the hind milk to go longer between feeds. If your milk flows too fast then you can always express a little before you put him on..

Its weird a few people have suggested that but i always feel like i have very little milk rather than an oversupply issue, plus im too soft and cant cope with the boob rage i get if i put him on the same side :s

Just remembered that on another thread somebody mentioned feed cues; nobody talked about that when mine were tiny but if look it uo on you tube it might be helpful
Remember to try and look after yourself in all of this.

Sorry op just seen this again. DS is a different boy on neocate. A colleague breast fed and had to change to neocate after trying to go dairy free and said it was the best moved ever. We've just started weaning on advicd of dietician and DS is thriving xx