Desperate for advice. Baby in pain while feeding

[Fueledwithfairydustandgin]

Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong with my 11 week old baby? He was mainly bottle fed as he had a dreadful latch when he was born but we persevered and eventually he was able to be combination fed.
We noticed many of the signs of silent reflux, he bubbled at the mouth all the time, would arch his back, frantically come on and off the nipple/teat, very gassy, wanted to be held upright and would arch his back and scream at feeding time’s. He was prescribed gaviscon and it seemed to settle things down but we noticed that he was fine breastfed with no gaviscon but needed it for bottles or he would scream for up to an hour afterwards. We’ve managed fine for the last couple of weeks it this week bottle feeding has become dreadful. He takes about 0.5oz then screams and arches and refuses to take any more. It almost seems like he’s choking too. He can do this also being breastfed but it is much less often (often the only way to calm him down after attempting to FF is for me to feed him)
He uses MAM bottles. I tried changing teat from 1 to 2 but that hasn’t helped at all. Does anyone have any ideas what it could be?

Also he has very explosive, runny poos despite being on gaviscon which I was warned could bung him up

CMPA?

It’s something that I’ve considered. Can you buy the milk or do you need a prescription?

Reflux?

He’s been diagnosed with silent reflux but this is while on gaviscon

Dairy allergy. You need prescription milk. And gaviscon is no good for silent reflux really, it just keeps the milk down which doesn't help silent reflux - he needs omeprazole. Hope you get it sorted.

We had almost exactly this scenario. Moved to combi feeding as felt baby was hungry (list of bfeeding issues as long as my arm) but she got worse! Moved from gaviscon onto omeprazole and was worse again still.
Eventually changed formula and saw improvements though she was still obviously in pain. Stopped her omeprazole and now she’s like a different baby.

Basically we were using omeprazole to treat symptoms of silent reflux when the issue was actually the formula. It wasn’t an intolerance or special milk either - we swapped from cow and gate to SMA

Have a Google about paced bottle feeding it's a game changer x

I know you’ve tried a faster teat but have you tried changing to a slower teat? Mam do a size 0 which you buy online. The flow might be too fast compared to BF. Agree with PP about paced bottle feeding too.

Gaviscon probably isn't enough. Dd was on losec and gaviscon. Ds was on Zantac and gaviscon. Go back to gp and ask for something else.

Thank you. Off to Google paced bottle feeding and will try a different formula. If no luck will speak to the GP again. Thank you so much. I really want to get it sorted for him because he’s clearly so uncomfortable

Does anyone have any particular bottles they’d recommend or do you find the bottles don’t really make a difference?

My DS was the same when we were combi-feeding - on the bottle he got trapped wind and got upset & the only thing that eased it was breastfeeding.

We had originally bought loads of the MAM anti colic bottles but after ditching breastfeeding ( it became too much doing it all on my own) we were given a Tommee Tippee perfect prep machine and found baby got on so much better with the bottle that came free with it.

It's these, you can buy them separately.

My boy was exactly the same except for the poo. We tried gaviscon, omeprozole, paced feeding, colief, dentinox, mam bottles, gripe water, 2 different types of prescription milk (which he barely touched even with vanilla added, and still reacted the same on) and even went to a and e with him at one point, to no avail. In the end we switched to cow and gate comfort formula and that, although not 100% better, helped MASSIVELY. This was all throughout the first lockdown so we were completely at a loss. In the end I just weaned him early and he took to food really well. Kept on cow and gate until he was 1, and is now fine on cows. Good luck with it, I could have written this myself last year so really feel for you 💐

Hi @Fueledwithfairydustandgin, how are thighs now?
Our relief from changing formula was short lived and things went downhill quite badly in terms of symptoms and discomfort. My baby is now trialling prescription formula - at the ripe old age of ) and a half months!

6 and a half*