Unsettled baby - tummy problems?

[babypanther]

My 18 day old DD has been unsettled and not sleeping well, over the past few days she’s also been a bit constipated and very unsettled after feeding, not sleeping at night, and seeming overtired.

My midwife came to visit today and said that it seems like DD has some sort of “tummy problems”. The midwife watched me feed her (formula fed) and wind her and then tried to put her down for a nap, the MW then said the way DD was pulling her legs up and the noises she was making sounded like it was something to do with her tummy.

We have been giving DD infacol for just over a week now. We had been using the perfect prep machine but stopped using this and have been preparing her bottles the usual way with the kettle. We are winding her and giving her regular breaks during feeds. At night she won’t sleep unless she’s lying on mine/DP’s chest, when I try to put her down for a nap during the day on her back in her Moses basket she will fuss and get upset until she’s in my arms. I’m at a loss for what else we can do, I feel absolutely awful for my poor girl as she seems so uncomfortable and frustrated.

The midwife said I could maybe change her formula but that it might not necessarily make a difference. I have been looking at Kendamil as it has good reviews, and wondered if anyone can recommend this if your babies had similar problems? At the moment she’s on the Aldi Mamia formula.

Tummy massage is good if constipated and gets things moving again a warm bath how much milk is she taking and how often is she feeding is she a guzzler with her milk?

@kirsty2023 she was having 4oz every three hours but today she’s been having 2oz every two or three hours, she doesn’t really guzzle it down, the midwife said she seems to be feeding fine.

My son was like this. We put him on Aptamil comfort milk until he was 4 months old as its easier for their digestive systems to process. The other thing you could try is the colief drops.

What bottles do u feed with if I may ask? I find with my DS he's 12 weeks today and he's on 5oz every 3 hours tried putting him up to 6 and he was always being sick I find he's gets a bad tummy if he hasn't had a poo all day is she poo it could be trapped wind x

Not wanting to sleep unless held is very normal for a newborn.
They also struggle with their digestion a lot in the first few months so could just be normal for your DD while her digestion is maturing.

My friend had their DD on Kendamil and they said it was brilliant.

Does your DD burp well after a feed? I see a lot of people suggest stopping a feed part way through to burp aswell as I could be worth a try.

Definitely try tummy massages and bicycle legs for the constipation.

My DD was on infacol and it really helped her with her trapped wind but we've tried it with DS (11 weeks old) and it doesn't seem to help him. DS has digestive discomfort and has lots of burps but he's pretty good at getting them up. He's a huge guzzler though, I'm bf and try do many different positions but he guzzles anyway, even if he has a bottle so definitely gets excess air intake.
I keep him as upright as possible after feeding.

When giving your DD a bottle try paced feeding (if you aren't already) and trying to feed as upright as you can as it will help.

@xxxemzyxxx i will have a look at those drops thank you!
@kirsty2023 we have been using tommee tippee bottles. She was quite constipated the past week and was only doing a poo every couple of days but over the past two days she has got more regular now and has done a poo everyday.
@kernowpicklepie I have heard good things about the Kendamil so we may try her on this. We’ve been doing the bicycle legs and tummy massage as well as some foot reflexology which we saw a video about which is meant to help babies poo. We do try and keep her upright and give her breaks during feeds to burp, sometimes she will do huge burps really quickly and other times it can take ages and ages to try and get her to burp.

My DS is the same, he'll usually do one or 2 instantly and seems ok but then 20mins later starts seeming uncomfortable and it'll be cause he'll have more burps to come up.

Hopefully changing to another milk may help with some of the problems she's having

Could she be taking in to much air may I ask why u stopped using ur prep machine mouth x

@kirsty2023 I stopped just because when I was researching I saw that some people said they can harbour bacteria and the hot shot might not be killing any bacteria in the formula, I was worried this might have been what was making DD so distressed but I do t think it has made much difference

She's very young still and it does take a while for their digestive systems to get used to milk in general.

Wanting to be held lots is normal as well. All they've known in the womb is you and you're they're safety. At 18 days she still very much running on instinct and instinct tells her to stay as close to the food source as possible.

Tummy massage is a good idea. Lots of people swear by it.

I would only change to kendamil if it's easy for you to get and in your price range. No one formula is better than the other really. The best on is the one that's easiest for you to get.

They can do but as long as u de-scale them when it comes up on screen it's fine I have the day and night one I find it a god send in the night time my other half wasn't keen coz he said the hot shot wouldn't be hot enough but if u do a hot shot and boil kettle in 2 to bottle they r them same temp x

As others have said, some of it sounds quite normal for 18 days, but perhaps trying other fotmulas might help. Whilst formulas have to provide the same nutrients, some of the added ingredients are different, for example some have palm oil etc in which I imagine could make a difference.
You could also change different bottles to see if your baby takes in less air.
I've also found Dentinox the best thing for wind, we didn't find infacol effective.
Hope you find something which helps.

@babypanther did you find a solution to this as I’m currently experiencing this with my 2 week old? X

@Hannah310523 we tried a few different formulas and eventually ended up on Hipp anti reflux milk, we also use the Mam anti colic bottles now. Our HV and GP both said it was probably reflux which is why we changed formula and bottles but she is still very windy. We just have to be careful to keep her upright while feeding and burp her really well. I can’t lie it’s much easier now she can support herself a bit more and sitting up a bit, I think that must help her digestion, also being 4 months old now her gut will have developed a bit more I think.

I hope that’s somewhat helpful! I would definitely recommend the mam bottles as they stopped her guzzling her milk too quickly. Good luck and hope you find a solution for your little one! X

@babypanther Thank you Hipp seems to be coming up quite a lot so I may try this next :)

we’re using the maam bottles already but somehow he still manages to guzzle haha! He’s definitely going to be a chunk!

thank you x

I'm a bit late to the game here. We used the tommee tippee perfect prep machine (and still do 15 months on) and never had any issues. I thjnk if there was concern over harbouring bacteria they wouldn't be allowed to use it for babies.

My little one had reflux but that was diagnosed at 8 weeks. She regularly vomited after bottles but if your little one just has trapped wind it may not be this.

I went to my pharmacy with my little one when wee because she hadn't popped for 3 days and I was told its fairly normal in formula fed babies especially if there's been any changes to diet (we were upping her formula and reducing breastfeeding at the time. I think there's a cut off when it's worrying say 4 or 5 days? But 2 or 3 they said was OK and she did go later that day.

As for not wanting to be put down for naps that's also totally normal. I read somewhere that for the first few weeks baby doesn't even know they are no longer a part of you so being on their own is unnatural to them. I read a lot also about how bad contact naps were but I lapped up every second of the cuddles and used it as an excuse for more haha eventually we got her going down at night and naps but she would fall asleep on me first. Swaddling helped massively too. We got the halo swaddle sleep suit it was excellent. Little one is now 15 months and we plop her in her cot in her own room and she eventually settles herself although that took 2 weeks of solid sleep training.

@babypanther I would also say if you suspect reflux, most reflux formulas out there say not to be used without medical advice. I asked about this and was told to avoid them and instead was given carobel to add to the formula. Can't remember the reasoning but the GP can prescribe it if your little one does have reflux.