Painful gas 3 month old baby - please help me :(

[Peaplant20]

Hi all. I am absolutely desperate please help me :( my baby is 15 weeks old but was born just over 5 weeks early so she’s sort of more like a 10 week old baby. She is so windy and very often she will cry out in pain and squirm and then pass gas so it’s obviously very painful for her. It absolutely breaks my heart to see her in pain like this and I feel really traumatised by it as it’s been going on for so long - I have been holding out because everywhere says that babies cry less after 6 or even 12 weeks and their digestive systems mature but it’s not happening.

I feel so desperate because I’ve mentioned it to the health visitor and GP numerous times and I’m not getting anywhere. She currently has infacol and we’ve also tried gripe water. She’s also on omeprazole for reflux if that is worth mentioning. I do tummy massage and bicycle legs etc but the problem is not that she can’t pass gas, it’s that it’s painful for her.

What do I do? I’m going back to the GP tomorrow as last time they suggested I go dairy free and that hasn’t helped at all after 6 weeks of being dairy free.

Has anyone else dealt with this and is there anything she can be prescribed or I can buy to help her not be in pain?

I’m also going to see a cranial osteopath next month.

TIA

- speak to gp tomorrow about tongue tie again

Personally I wouldn't bother speaking to the GP about tt. I don't think that infant feeding is part of the training to be a GP and tt definitely isn't.

It would be a rare GP that would be able to help you with this.

I'd speak to one of the TT practitioners in the link I posted earlier or to Milk Matters.

@tiddlysquat, your post hardly reflected that. Maybe you should have posted what you said here in your original reply?

@Peaplant20 I think I went through the GP. It's about 15 years ago but I think it cost about £150 and we got instant results. It would have taken months on NHS and she was barely feeding by this time.

See what the GP says but also bear in mind my experience is that they are not good on allergies so do your own research and see if you think your baby might be allergic - possibly not but it's definitely worth a bit of digging around on and seeing if it chimes . Dairy is the main one .

Giving up BF is more if you find an allergy, as it's much easier to manage with special milk than by trying to control your diet. I tried normal formula on advice of GP as she thought dd maybe just hungry and she had a huge reaction (hence the allergy test), so I'd probably do the allergy test before changing her feeding especially if she's feeding well from you .

@minipie @DominicRaabsTravelAgent really frustratingly at the time I went to the tt consultant she was on day 4 of 5 extremely settled/ chilled days which has never happened before or since and so I wasn’t that pushy as I felt like maybe she’d hit that magic 12 week mark and it was all over! Practically the day after she was back to being in pain and windy. I did say what do I do if I have problems again and she said I’d have to get a referral from the GP but it took 3 weeks the first time when the infant feeding team referred me (but they won’t refer me again now that baby is 15 weeks old it has to be through the GP). I’ll look at those links thank you - going to be bankrupt soon with the cranial osteopath, allergy testing, baby massage etc! But at this point I just want to try anything. I’ve also been recommended an apparently very good private doctor in london who specialises in reflux, allergies etc etc but it’s £200 just for the first consultation and I don’t really live very near so it would be quite stressful getting there with a very upset baby in the car. Going to try some of the other things first.

@tiddlysquat so did your LO not feed well until you sorted the allergies? So she didn’t want to feed because it was making her uncomfortable?

If going DF made no difference I'd start by spending your money on the tt then see if you still have problems.

A BFC on one of the Helplines should be able to talk to you about feeding after tt has been snipped and a fast letdown, plus the Helplines are pretty much free

Abs also agree with minipie. That seems like the best solution

It's all a bit hazy but she did stop feeding, but I was also ill so I can't remember if I decided it was the allergy or the fact that perhaps my milk wasn't good . This was at 5 months though and she'd been in chronic pain since birth . She was still a happy baby in between reflux - which would start at 5pm and basically go on all night. At 5 months it was so bad I was sleeping next to her rubbing her tummy most of the night which seemed to help. I've never had so little sleep fir so long .
It got a lot better on the special milk and when weaned.

I don't know anything about tongue tie though and it sounds like from others on here you should definitely prioritise that

I would 1. Get the tongue tie fixed and 2. Go dairy free for a few weeks to see if that helps. If dairy free doesn't help (much) continue being dairy free anyway and also go soy free. You will need to check everything you eat.

My daughter had (and still has) CMPA (cows milk protein allergy) which wss undiagnosed for over 5 months. The various GPS at my practice were useless. She barely slept and would wake up every 30min screaming in pain. You could hear her stomach/intestines move. She never had eczema etc.

FWIW you don't have to breastfeed but in my experience it's very difficult to get an alternative milk prescribed.

There's a very helpful Facebook group CMPA support and a sub-group CMPA Breastfeeding support.

Also - I wouldn't waste money on allergy testing at this age as the tests are notoriously unreliable.

My DD was the same. Turned out to be a dairy allergy. I found cutting dairy out of my diet solved it completely.

@Peaplant20 I'm not being rude, but that is one hell of a list to get through. I know you would do anything to make things easier for your child but from what you've said I would forget most for now and concentrate on getting the click/tongue tie sorted. If baby is clicking the latch isn't right, go private, have it clipped and go from there. If things continue then you can work your way through a list, but honestly for most people, and babies, having a tongue tie clipped is a saviour. Even if it is 'small' it can impact a latch and so much more.

Ok thanks all. I’d sort of stopped prioritising the tongue tie due to what they said at the appointment and tbh i was quite relieved about not having to get it cut as I know it will be horrible to go through. I’ve read that clicking can be from oversupply (although she still clicks on the bottle) or that some babies just click so I’d told myself it was one of those things. Some of my NCT mums have used a local private TT practitioner and said she was really good so I’ll contact them and go from there. I’m worried they will also advise it’s not ‘worth’ doing though - I think I’ll have to push for it?

Another thought though is just why is it so painful for her to pass gas? If she’s taking in gas from the TT then obviously I’ll be so relieved if it fixes it, but lots of babies are gassy and don’t seem to be in pain from the gas? Any ideas? Maybe because she’s prem and it’s the immature digestive system?

There is a useful article on on Kellymom about clicking, but yes, it does sound as if you may have to push for the procedure.

How uncomfortable is she on passing gas?

Also agree that allergy testing is particularly useless at this stage.

If cutting out the dairy had helped that might be different but even then allergy testing is unlikely to pick up any Non-ige allergies.

Following this thread as we have exactly the same with our 8 week old.

We’ve had a TT snip but he’s still clicking and has a shallow latch. Hoping to be referred back to the infant feeding team for help with his latch. We had two options for referral - I had one appointment with a private lactation consultant whilst waiting for the NHS one - and then the NHS one through my health visitor. Where I am appointments are pretty quick and the private consultant (£90) was able to refer me to NHS TT.

I’m really hoping things get better but just want to manage expectations that it’s not necessarily instantaneous (lots of people said it would immediately improve).

I went to the GP yesterday as a couple of nights ago he was screaming so much he started hyperventilating. Tbh it was totally useless - we were advised to wind (we do every feed), bicycle legs (all the time), tummy rubs (yep). I asked about calpol and she said we don’t advise it. However, I bought some to have on standby because he was definitely in pain.

Sending you hugs because it’s heartbreaking to see them like this…

I gave up dairy for 2 months but it made no difference to my dairy allergic baby.
We had allergy testing at 4-5 months and it showed a severe dairy allergy

Just to say that the TT snip really isn’t awful to go through. They rub on some anaesthetic gel, do the snip, takes 10 seconds, baby cries, you put them on the boob and they stop crying. Might be a bit of blood where they’ve fed. That’s it. If your baby spent time in NICU they probably had worse in there - heel pricks etc.

Yes my DC was uncomfortable with the wind too. I think immature digestive system is probably why as you say. It’s a bit old fashioned but gripe water helped with the wind a bit as I recall.

My daughters apparently had a tongue tie and we didn't get it snipped (the thought traumatised me). I gave up breastfeeding not because of the tongue tie but I just couldn't do it mentally. My friends sons had tongue tie and they had it snipped but didn't improve the breastfeeding.

If you're using bottles then try the Mam bottle. You don't have to give up breastfeeding but try formula say once a day and see how baby is with it? Keep her upright after her feeds and make sure u burp her after every feed or even try even after she's had a little bit of milk.

Thank you everyone again I really appreciate all of this support. We went to the GP this morning and she thinks that is is reflux still and we need to up the dose of omeprazole as she is in pain from that then crying and taking in air leading to the gas. If it doesn’t improve after a week of increased dose then she is phoning me in a week and we will see a paediatrician. She was against allergy testing as she said they don’t really do it in babies they just say do elimination but since going dairy free hasn’t helped at all she thinks it’s not a dairy allergy and she also thinks it’s j likely to be soy. I brought up tongue tie again and but she thinks we should try this first for a week then go from there. If there’s no improvement I will book a private one that my NCT mum friends have used.

@DominicRaabsTravelAgent about half of the time she passes gas and doesn’t even blink, the other half of the time she shrieks out in pain then passes gas :(.

@Bunny2021 I am sorry you’re going through this too it’s absolutely horrible. My LO gets to what seems like hyperventilating sometimes too it’s very upsetting to see. It must be really frustrating that he’s had the TT snip but still clicking. I also asked the gp about pain relief and she said there wasn’t anything I could give.

@tiddlysquat do you know why giving up dairy made no difference to your LO even though they did actually have a dairy allergy?

@minipie ah ok that actually makes me feel a lot better thank you. Yeah she had heel pricks and things and also obviously her 8 and 12 week vaccinations.

Good luck OP!

No idea why it doesn't always work cutting out dairy yourself. I was told by the private consultant I saw for allergy testing and a health visitor that I'd never clear allergens without using special milk, and tbh that was proven by my experience .

Hopefully whatever the issue is will resolve itself as your little one gets older , it will certainly get better one way or the other x

Ok thanks to the Pp who suggested the koala hold! I’ve tried it with some success twice today. I usually do laid back feeding but this is better because she more upright and then when she’s done I just slightly recline and she falls asleep on me. Where’s with laid back I usually latch her in the cradle hold and then lean back and she’s not usually in a great position to sleep on me after so she gets flung about a bit which maybe is making her reflux worse? I also found she hasn’t clicked too much with the koala hold today. I’m not sure how much it will help with her being unsettled overall but after a very fussy few days of feeding we’ve just had some lively feeds and even if it only helps a small amount with her reflux/ gas issues I will take it!

*lovely feeds not lively feeds!

@tiddlysquat that’s really interesting I will bear it in mind thank you, really glad it worked for you