Baby squirming in pain

[shilohsmum]

Posting here for higher traffic

DS is 7 weeks old. For a while now he's struggled with squirming around with gas pains, wriggling around to get them out at night. We have tried everything: gripe water, infacol, winding after feeds, bicycle legs, tummy massage before bed, bath before bed. No tongue tie (ruled out by IBCLC) and no CMA allergy (ruled out by HV and GP).

He's breastfed mostly - sometimes has a bit of formula top up when it's DH shift and we've run out if expressed milk. We're seeing if changing the formula to anti-colic will help.

He's woken up multiple times with this gassy pain every night.

I supposed it could be something I'm eating but can't know what it is? Tired and desperate!

There is a lot of research about cmpa and breastfeeding

There isn’t though, that the whole thing. The most recent research suggests it isn’t possible for allergens to cause reactions in b/m except in a tiny % of infants. I’m not saying your baby wasn’t in the tiny % that was affected but the vast majority of mums who are told to cut dairy etc from their diet simply don’t need too. The ‘education’ around cmpa has been driven by the formula industry. Unfortunately they actually educate a lot of HCPs because many NHS trust break guidelines and there is little large scale interest in making sure breastfeed advice follows scientific research. BMJ has many good articles on the subject.

We've just had another horrendous night with this. He wakes up from wriggling around and starts crying. It does sound like he's in pain. Exhausting for us both....

No rash, no sneezing/coughing, no respiratory issues, no ear infections and poops are fine, and me and his dad aren't allergic. GP quickly ruled it out

Sorry @grosgirl changed my username for another thread and forgot to change it back till just now

Sounds like colic. He will grow out of it have you tried keeping him more upright ?

Joining in as DD, 6weeks, is exactly the same. It's definitely not normal baby wriggling - she screams in pain and takes ages to calm her, usually by loads of burping / holding her upright / feeding her to push it out as wind/poo

Shes EBF but her latch isn't great, so think it could be because she's getting too much air. But still really difficult to manage

But colic is just a catch all term for 'unexplained crying'

It has no medical definition....

@MandaLynn It will get better. You could be describing my DS there.... It got so much better as he got a bit bigger and stronger.
Working on latch and winding is probably the way forward.
It also gets easier from here as your supply settles/ let downs hopefully calm down a bit plus baby is bigger to cope with them

@Snugglemonkey How long did it take to see a difference, once you dropped dairy from your diet?

@shilohsmum @incogniton exactly the same with my daughter, which is why I think it’s so unlikely!

They reckon 2+ weeks for it to leave your system then 2+ to leave baby's so it's not a quick fix. As I understand it, that doesn't mean there won't be improvement before that

I can't remember tbh, but it was much faster than they told me it would be. It was incremental rather than a miracle turnaround, but I could see it improving all the time and I don't think the whole thing took more than a fortnight. I was able to slowly reintroduce everything except the dairy and soya. The eggs took a while, I did the egg ladder but was glad to have them back.

When we started weaning, I had to be very careful. He once took a reaction seemingly out of the blue, but I realised the plate he was eating off had been in the sink I accidentally dropped dp's buttery knife into. It was enough.

He has no allergies at all now though.

My DS is 8 weeks old and from weeks 2-6 he would grunt, squirm, yell and even growl in his sleep, sometimes all the way through the night. It was like trying to sleep next to a very busy farmyard. We still have the occasional night like that now but it’s improving. It was definitely wind/digestion related, we burped him loads and did some baby massage before bed but I think it’s purely time that has started to improve things.

I have a 6 week old formula fed with Aptimal. He is very squirmy and can be grunty. I read this was common from aptimal, I feel like this prevents him being put down as he will then squirm and cry. I give infacol before each feed and burp at every ounce and this helps a little but he is still uncomfortable.

Noticed some new replies, an update from me as he's 6 months old now and doing loads better, he only wants to sleep on his tummy but is an expert roller so fine with us. Think little babies have so much to get used to with their brand new digestive system don't they!