Colic, reflux or Something Else? SOS

[ART2022]

This is my first post on mumsnet. Really hoping for some advice as seem to be hitting a brick
wall with health professionals. Sorry for the essay but here goes.

I have a daughter of 5 weeks. The last 3 weeks she’s been getting progressively more unsettled and seemingly uncomfortable. It started with grunting and squirming when we put her down. Now she seems unhappy and uncomfortable during and after feeds too. During the morning she is usually fine but as the day goes on she starts fussing during feeds - pulling at my breast, crying and coming off the breast. Sometimes this goes on for a couple of hours on and off. At worst (usually in the evening) she will start feeding, choke/gag and cry. Her crying progresses to screaming and can go on for hours
without us being able to comfort her. She seems hungry and she bobs around looking for my breast so then re latches but the same will happen again. After a long period she usually conks out asleep for a couple of hours.

She usually manages to sleep in her crib for a couple of hours from around 1am -3am. after that she won’t settle and wakes up grunting and wriggling. She will happily sleep on me or my husband though. Same in the day - happily naps on me (still squirms but doesn’t wake her up) but after being put down she wakes herself up grunting like a donkey!

Other things to note

• she’s not really sick.Although ‘possets’ a little after feeds.


• She has nappy rash that we can’t seem to cure.


• She does lots of poos per day - yellow and normal looking though they do seem to come out with force and she sometimes wriggles around trying to get one out.


• She gets wind.


• She’s gaining weight well.


• She feeds frequently - around 2 hours in between and feeds for about 10-15 mins. Only ever takes one side.


• Doesn’t latch on great as doesn’t open wide but breastfeeding team say she must be getting enough because of nappies and weight gain so to keep going


• We’ve tried keeping her upright after feeds, raising her bed, burping during feeding


• i think I have oversupply and fast flow. When I pump I express about 150ml off each breast in about 10 mins

We’ve spoken to a GP twice, one prescribed gaviscon. The other said not to give her gaviscon and that was suffering with colic and to give her dentinox. She advised going to children’s’ ED if she got worse but also suggested it’s just her digestive system maturing.

The health visitor says I have an oversupply, which is causing the gagging (confused though as surely this would effect all feeds?) But that she might also have some colic. She suggested cutting out dairy.

The other night she’d struggled to feed all day and screamed the house down for hours in the evening. We took her to ED as advised (seemed so OTT but desperation kicked in). Dr said its normal for babies to cry and that she might have a bit of reflux but medication isn’t the first option.

We now have in the house: dentinox, infacol, colief, gaviscon, probiotics. We’re yet to consistently try anything as we don’t want to make her worse by trying to treat the wrong issue e.g. make her constipated with gaviscon or make relfux worse with infacol etc.

We’re at our wits end with conflicting advice. All I know is that is her crying doesn’t seem normal and neither does her discomfort around feeding. All of which is getting worse every day. All babies do is sleep and eat and she’s not enjoying either at the moment. We’re not getting any sleep and it’s heartbreaking to see her upset and in pain.

If anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated

Have they checked for tongue tie at all?

The sleeping only on people is quite normal, tricky though it is. My second DD is 6 weeks old and doesn't like to sleep in a cot. We cosleep and during day she sleeps in sling a lot. DD1 was totally happy in a Moses basket or cot by contrast. Just different babies and personalities! It's been an adjustment for me as I was used to a very easy baby with DD1, and while DD2 isn't a difficult baby, she is less easy going and more prone to crying than DD1 was.

It sounds like maybe you do have a fast letdown if she's struggling and choking a bit. This will get better as she grows. I have the same problem and DD gets a bit annoyed sometimes. It can help to express some off by hand first to try slow the flow a bit. DD2 also has taken to a dummy quite well as she loves to comfort suck but due to my fast letdown and abundance of milk, she gets annoyed when milk keeps coming when she just wants to comfort suck, so if she seems annoyed after a decent feed I try her with the dummy and it sometimes does settle her and let her drift off.

Evening times with young babies are often very fussy times. The witching hour is usually some time between 5-11pm (or all of it if you're unlucky). DD2 is like clockwork: 5pm she becomes very grizzly, pulls on and off breast a lot, cries, is very difficult to sooth, until she conks out about 8.30 and that's her for a decent chunk of sleep. Feeding lying down is a lifesaver as then you dont have to relocate them, which is often what wakes them.

The difficult bit doesn't last, it's all just a phase. Crying tends to peak at about 6 weeks and then get gradually better and is much reduced by about 12.

Oh and if you haven't tried a sling, then I really recommend it. It's often the only thing that will settle DD in the witching hour and allow me to get anything done! We have a Close Caboo which is a soft sling and I find it really comfy for wearing around the house.

Wake windows are really small at this age so if she's been awake longer than an hour she's probably overtired. Sling is a really good way to get them to sleep quickly. DD usually zonks out after about 3/4 mins of me walking around with her.

My twins were like this. I think they had a crap latch (and still do!) which was causing lots of air gulping and wind. God they were miserable. I cut out lactose (as opposed to dairy, mainly because it was a really easy swap in terms of milk and cheese) and it may have made a difference. They were definitely happier afterwards but I don’t know if it was just a coincidence.

How much sleep is she getting? I read a thread here where a poster suggested overtiredness contributes to colic and as soon as I focussed on getting as much sleep into my girls however I could they also seemed happier. 5 weeks is around the time they stop just sleeping all the time.

Sounds very much like my DD. She is cows milk protein intolerant. If you are exclusively BF, try cutting all dairy and soya (similar protein structure to dairy) from your diet for 2 weeks.

A paediatric consultant told me that, in babies with reflux, they now suspect CPMI to be the root cause in most. Over 90% grow out of it by 6 months.

Thanks all. @Nat888 she has been checked for TT and all is fine.

The only thing that’s making me question her being unsettled @Hugasauras is that for the first few weeks she was very happy sleeping in a Moses basket or sleepyhead. Now she wakes herself up with the writhing around, scrunching her body and grunting. So it feels less like she’s upset and wanting to be held than somethings going on her tummy that’s waking her? Or could I be wrong?

I wondered if trying colief might be a good first step in exploring dairy allergy. Although a faf to administer with breasted baby :(

www.babydoc.com.au/faq/colic-bore-your-baby-to-sleep/

Have a read of this. Really good insight into normal infant behavior.

This sounds like my 3 week old only maybe with less crying. I feel for you OP because DC1 had reflux and I just was hit with a wall of unhelpful HV and GPs...one of which told me to give DD formula because I was a new parent and was probably just tired because my baby was feeding all the time! If you really think something is wrong keep going back to your GP, keep pushing them. It's hard but you know your baby best!

With DC2 at the moment he is very fussy from late afternoon and then has a witching hour around 9pm for a few hours. I find sometimes if he is coming on and off and getting annoyed I spend some time burping him and giving him some tummy massages (YouTube how to do these) and if that doesn't work I just outright get him to sleep because he is overtired. At this age they still find it hard to poo so I think the wriggling around and grunting in the cot is because his brain and bowl muscles haven't linked up and matured yet.

On another note - you need to air the baby's bum for nappy rash. Try just 5-10 minutes nappy free time every day. I also found the yellow nappy rash cream (metatonin?) Is the best!

You are doing a fantastic job with a grumble baby! Keep going!

Hi op we had hospital diagnosed reflux with our DS and had many of the symptoms you describe. The consultant told us it would resolve usually by the time baby is 10-12 pounds in weight as tummy has more space and around the same time the bum and brain line up and pooping gets easier for them. For us, 10.5 pounds was a bit of a magic milestone for all of this. It didn’t disappear overnight but it all improved very quickly after that.
No medicine that we tried worked and we tried them all.
The things that did work were recommended by neonatal nurse - smaller feeds every hour (limiting time on breast or reducing bottle volume), thickening milk to keep it in the tummy if using bottles (although this caused other issues with other end of his tummy) and keeping him upright for 20-30 minutes after every feed for milk to process. Expressing a bit before feed as a previous pp said is also helpful if you have oversupply and fast letdown/flow.
On the nappy rash - ours was resolved by using cotton wool and water rather than wipes. And more fresh air too as pp says.
Reflux was very hard on us as we got barely any sleep for 3 months. We just had to use a sling and that worked really well to keep him upright and gave arms a rest. It didn’t help with getting more sleep sadly or stop the evening crying until he was a couple of months old. He still cries in the evening sometimes and he’s a year old!
I really feel for you, it is torture but it does pass eventually and hopefully you will all feel much better by 12-14 weeks.

My DC had a dairy allergy and sounded very similar to this, although with a lot more sick. I was told it was colic and/or they were hungry and needed feeding more (🙄).
Was gaining weight beautifully until around 3months, when it dropped off.
Although their poos were not normal!

If it is dairy, you will need to cut it out of your diet and read every single label! Milk is in lots of things!
It takes 2 weeks for the proteins to leave your body then another two to leave the babies. So you may not see a difference for 4 weeks. (Although was def quicker than that for my DC, although full symptoms took that long).

Thanks everyone. It’s nice to feel heard and to read of people with similar experiences.

I think we’ll give it a little more time and see how she is before pushing for any medication/diagnosis. Fingers crossed some of you are right and it’s just normal baby fussy-ness and her digestive system maturing.

@pinkunicorns54 hopefully not TMI but what were the poos like?!

Very watery, very mucous-y. People kept telling me they were normal... but only when a HV suggested CMPA and I did some research did I realise they weren't!