Newborn baby problems

[HamHock]

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone could help me with my babies gas issues?

DS is 3 weeks old. He is breastfed and feeding is going really well - I was taught by someone on the feeding team and have had them and midwives tell me that the feeding looks good - position is right, latch is good etc. I express enough for one feed a day which he has before bed as it helps him to sleep for about 4 hours, whereas on the breast we usually only get maximum two. This bottle means the difference between me crying because I’m so exhausted and coping okay, so I really want to carry on doing it.
But DS has developed REALLY bad gas in the last few days. He is really unhappy. We burp him a decent amount but very little comes up, but he spends a lot of time uncomfortable as he needs to fart. He wriggles and writhes and cries and really struggles. I do tummy massage and the leg bicycle thing but it doesn’t help. We are giving him colic medicine (colief I think?).

My midwife said he should be gassy because of the breastfeeding, so what is going on? My health visitor didn’t really say much. I hate seeing him so unhappy and we’re out of ideas! I was on antibiotics For an infection in my uterus, but that finished 3 days ago, would that still be affecting him?

Thanks for any suggestions!

My third had this. For the most part it was just a case of weathering it, as it did pass, but it’s hard. The recommended things like tummy massage and bicycle legs didn’t give him much relief but we tried them anyway. It always woke him in the v early morning and made it hard for him to get back to sleep so it can be v disruptive. He also bf and had one feed in a bottle, but as he didn’t obviously seem to get the gas after the bottle feed it didn’t seem to be the issue. The main thing I would recommend which may help to some degree is to use infacol before every feed. We did that for a good couple of months or so and it helped to a degree I think.

Do you have a history of milk allergy in the family? If so you could try giving up dairy and see if it improves?

@Himawarigirl The same, it’s often early morning that he is worst, he wakes and then struggles for ages. The bottle feed seems to help, he has a big clear out after a big feed, either by bottle or if he is on the breast for ages then it really helps.

I will look into infacol, is it different from the colief?

@GrumpyHoonMain I’ve just had this chat with my mum as I have been having more dairy than usual. I will cut it out and see how it goes

I’m not sure of the difference but infacol is designed to bring up air in the tummy, I.e. help them get a good burp out when air may otherwise have got trapped. It’s the kind of thing that you can tie yourself in knots from googling about but hopefully it’s just a phase that some of them have in early life and nothing more significant with allergies etc.

Can’t offer much help but just wanted to say your not alone, my little girl is 3 weeks Monday and is exactly the same. Sometimes as bad in the day but mostly night times. Started infacol yesterday not made any difference yet. She just so uncomfortable and strains all the time, very hard to watch and making my feel very down and like a terrible mum for not being able to help her. She is EBF except had 2 bottles evenings last week but now seem unenable to express anything last 24hours. Hope your little one improves soon and it’s just a phase they go through.

We have ebf as have a number of my friends and we have all had issues with wind!
Infacol helped us around 3-6 weeks - as helps the little gas bubbles join up to give bigger bubbles that are easier to bring up. It helped us practice different burping techniques and lo learn how to bring it up herself.
Have a look at the magic hold - there are videos on you tube

My first DD was bf for a few weeks and had this problem, new DD (nearly 10 weeks old) has been ff from 2 days old and also has this problem!

We have tried:
Infacol
Colief
Gripe water
All sorts of massage / leg cycling
Dummy

DD is on a milk for possible dairy allergy and still has this problem. It seems to be at its worst from about 3am when she seems very uncomfortable. I assume its from laying still for hours & the gas builds up. Who knows! I just hope it passes soon.

My son was the same, it was awful! He’s 12 weeks now and it’s MUCH better, it just took time for his digestive system to mature

[quote HamHock]@GrumpyHoonMain I’ve just had this chat with my mum as I have been having more dairy than usual. I will cut it out and see how it goes[/quote]
Cool. Try that for a week and see if it helps. You could also try drinking dill water yourself - it’s an old ayurvedic trick of getting rid of gas while breastfeeding and genuinely works. During my confinement period I drank about half a cup in the morning and the days I missed it DS really struggled.

HV is sadly mistaken that BF babies don't get gassy. It's a bit of a myth unless latch and positioning and anatomy is perfect. But we did use infacol to help get the wind up.

And he kind of grew out of needing it by about 3-4 mo

And antibiotics could most definitely affect him. I won't detail the effect that both DS and I being on antibiotics had at about 5.5 mo but it was not a fun week

My HV told me bf babies didn’t get wind. Utter bs as far as I can tell! My DD really struggled with gas at that age. We tried infacol and massage/bicycle legs... sometimes they helped a bit, but in all honesty we just kind of had to wait it out - as she got a little larger her latch changed a bit so I think she swallowed less air, and she worked out how to fart more easily... it was much better by about 5/6 weeks I think.

What sort of bottle are you using for the expressed feed? Might be worth getting anti colic ones. MAM bottles are good and pretty well accepted by breastfed babies.

If it’s lower gas (farts instead of burps) we had done success with “toes to nose”. Literally bending the toes up to touch the nose and then flat again. Repeat a few times and some satisfying farts come out! For top wind (burps), sitting baby on my knee, one hand on chest and fingers under chin, other hand on back and fingers supporting back of the head, then bend baby at the waist and move in circles. That worked well for getting up burps.

Sometimes they can just be grunty and windy at that age, the digestive system is still maturing and sometimes it just needs a bit of time for that to happen. We didn’t find Infacol or Colief etc made much difference.

Also, yes, antibiotics can really mess with their gut flora and could still be impacting now. My DS ended up on several courses of antibiotics when he was tiny and the GP said it can affect their gut for quite some time after while the flora recovers.

Antibiotics can go into your breast milk and affect baby. I advise you to give baby BioGaia probiotics.

A few people have mentioned cow's milk protein allergy (CMPA). If baby has it, gas/wind is unlikely to be the only symptom. There are various other symptoms they might have, including diarrhoea, mucus or blood in poo, green poo, constipation, vomiting, reflux... and others. They won't necessarily have all of these symptoms but would probably have a few. See dilanandme.com/confirm-cmpa/

I am dairy free myself (first baby had CMPA and second was showing several symptoms too) and it's doable but hard so I wouldn't recommend it unless you are reasonably sure it could be a possibility.

If gas/wind is the only issue and has only been an issue for the last few days, it's probably just the antibiotics and hopefully it will be resolved with probiotics and time.

Thanks everyone for your replies! When he has his bottle feed of expressed milk it is with an anti-colic bottle from Tommee Tippee. We’ve tried gently lifting his legs up as well but not much. He’s really upset right now and it’s awful because all you want to do is make it better for them and it’s really hard! I really hope my anti biotics are the cause and it reduces in the next few days or so bless him. It’s taking its toll on me because he is being very needy. I’ve basically sat in the same spot all day bouncing, cuddling, holding and comforting him and I’m exhausted. 😫
I can’t imagine watching him be this uncomfortable for about 3 weeks...

Good luck. It is hard but he’ll get through it. And remember that small babies can very often seem inconsolable around early evening even without gas. Between 5 and 9 they can be all over the place and v unhappy. And feeding can feel constant in the early weeks. I’m sure you’re doing a great job.

@Himawarigirl thank you - I really needed to hear that right now!