Giving up BF at 5months

[Scho23]

My baby has been dealing with reflux for the past 5 months. Inconsolable crying and screaming. It’s taken such a toll on me and my husband. She’s so happy in between these episodes. GPs have been really dismissive and have just medicated (gaviscon, Omeprazole) and said she’ll grow out of it. There seems to be no end in sight.

I don’t know what to do anymore and I think I just need to give up breastfeeding. I’ve tried to work on latch, breastfeeding clinic have said they see no issue with it. I feel totally out of options but can’t go on like this.

I feel like I’ve failed and it’s all my fault / quality of my milk / latch etc etc.

anyone else been through the same thing? What formula would you recommend? Thanks so much.

Yep I had a horrendous time bf’ing & gave up at 6 months. Best advice on formula was buy what’s in the shop nearest to you!! Moving to formula didn’t stop the constant wind, so stuck with infacol before all bottle feeds. Was using it before bf’ing too, and it did help. Weaning starts from 6 months so if it’s not painful for you I’d probably keep going, maybe try & express your breast milk to see if DD is better with a bottle?

whatever you decide you’re not a failure, you’re weighing up pros & cons and making your decision to best look after your DD. That’s shit hot parenting OP

I would recommend going back to the GP and asking about cmpa and a paediatrician referral. My daughter has severe reflux that she hasn't grown out of. She needs high dose omperazole (it had barely any effect until she was on 3mg/kg) as much gaviscon as we could get in her and then we added domperidone and that got her symptom free for about 6 months until a growth spurt and teething set us back. she is 3.5 now and her reflux goes in and out of being managed by her medication. For us it's not a linear thing. She has food allergies too and which make her reflux worse although she does have reflux independent of them

If you think you will need ammunition to change either go dairy and soya free for 2 weeks before going or buy an extensively hydrolysed formula to try. Pepti or nutramigen are often the first formulas

My baby was like this and it was such a hard time. We found out later on when we started weaning that he actually had CMPA. Have you tried giving up dairy to see if that makes a difference?

I don't really know much about reflux or formula sorry. I just wanted to say that if you do stop breast feeding and swap to formula, you are absolutely not in any way a failure! You carried on breastfeeding through what sounds like a very difficult time and have given your baby the benefit of that for the first months of their life. That is not failing, that's a fantastic effort!

Swapping to a different way of feeding your baby that suits your current situation better is absolutely fine 🤷‍♀️ I would keep in mind that formula might not fix the reflux/screaming problems (maybe there are magic fix formulas, I just don't know about that bit) but if it makes it easier to cope with by being able to share the feeding load then that's entirely fair enough! 🙂

Would it fix the problem? I think the issue would still be there but you’d now have to make up feeds too. Also if it is a milk allergy you might find it gets worse if you move onto formula and then you will have the faff of getting and trying cow’s milk free ones and soya free ones. Have you tried removing milk from your diet?

I know it feels impossible and that’s it’s been an eternity but it will pass, and then breastfeeding is amazing. I had similar to begin with and then breastfed for years with none of the earlier issues.

But you have to do what is right for you. The most important thing is that you are in a good place and if breastfeeding has become such a big issue then it is not, in this day and age, worth maintaining.

It's absolutely fine to stop BFing if that's what you want to do.

I would though recommend having a look at this article on Tongue Tie as it can also affect bottle feeding.

Then I'd call one of the BFing Helplines to talk through your BFing experience and to come up with a plan to stop BFing whilst reducing your risk of mastitis.

Went to see a paediatrician today who told me to go private. What a great healthcare system we have…!

I would say that's shocking but I'm really not surprised. We went private when we couldn't get an appointment an NHS appointment. The NHS paediatrician was a bit miffed but agreed with the prescribing plan set out by the private Dr so we only needed the one appointment with the private paediatrician. I hated doing it as my family have always worked in the NHS but I couldn't cope without s plan as the GP wasn't helpful and we couldn't escalate it. My FIL is only alive to day because of a thorough GP and private medical cover. The GP sent him for a scan without proper indication to do so. NHS protocol would have been to not send him and he had private medical cover that gave him immediate access to chemotherapy and then an operation not available on the NHS. By the book he would have been advanced stage 4 at diagnosis as it was he was early stage 4. Now in remission.

Is private feasible for you? It cost us £250 if you need a rough figure we paid out of pocket. In hindsight I might have got some of it covered through basic healthcare at work. It has a small budget such as dental, opticians and physio etc. it might be something to look at too. I hate that this is even a topic for discussion though!

@Superscientist i just feel so unbelievably stressed, I cannot think :(

Thank you for sharing your experience. I can’t believe what you’ve had to go through.

Do you think initiating a cmpa trial yourself would be an option either by taking it out of your milk or trialling a dairy free formula?

If you are brave and have support you could try regular formula and see if that triggers a more pronounced reaction.

Is there anyone to support you? My HV has just come back in my support team and offering me counselling as I navigate life with a child with medical challenges. I remember how lost I felt at this stage and I definitely feel for you. Is there anyone looking after your wellbeing at the moment?

OP what did the paediatrician tell you to go private for? Treatment of reflux or something else? From my experience the paediatricians will weigh and measure your baby to check they are staying on or near enough centile. They will look for a reason for the reflux (top contenders tongue tie or CMPA). If there is no additional reason the only thing they're likely to offer is a higher dose of omeprazole. I'm not knocking the meds - they can help. For me the questions are 1. Do you feel certain that there is no tongue tie and 2. Have you tried excluding dairy and soy from your own diet - you do need to check every label and really make sure. When I was in your position I was really dismissive of the CMPA suggestion because he didn't have much by way of skin signs, no blood in nappy. Within 48 hours of cutting dairy out he went from pooing 10-15 times a day to only four. I then cut soy as well and he almost completely stopped vomiting. Then he held his centile which by then had dropped to the 2nd. This is a long way of saying honestly what have you got to lose? Try cutting out dairy and soy.

YANBU if you want to stop. It is your body.

If you did want to try other things it might be worth trialling no dairy. There is a good website called freetofeed which explains if you want to try this you should see some improvement in 2-3 days though it will take longer for all dairy proteins to be totally gone from your milk, it's not something you have to struggle through the entire 6 week trial some will suggest.

What is the "breastfeeding clinic" - is this an NHS service? Unfortunately the NHS breastfeeding support is a total postcode lottery. Saying they "see no issue" with latch is a bit of a red flag that they might not have really looked at it properly/have the experience to fully assess - you should ideally be given much more comprehensive feedback than this!

You can often find people with better BF knowledge at NCT/ABM breastfeeding counsellors/support groups. La Leche League meetings/helpline. If you have a Sure Start centre sometimes they have a group. Then IBCLCs often run groups and have private practice (not ideal, I know). You will probaby get more detailed info here, if that is something that you want. Sometimes this detailed info can come with a side of pro-breastfeeding zeal or assumption that your absolute goal is to exclusively breastfeed - so def ask about alternatives if this is not your wish.

Also, if all this sounds like too much and you just want to stop, absolutely do that! It's a totally valid choice either way.

Just want to say sorry for not sharing more info and going a bit quiet. Been very overwhelmed and emotional but want to say thank you for all your kind words 😢 and I’ll properly respond when LO goes to bed tonight.

I have been dairy free for 2 months and seen almost difference! Might be worth trying soy, do you think?

I had similar issues and gave up at 2 months. Felt terrible about it at the time, but 10 years on couldn't give 2 shits.

I actually have more regret about not giving up sooner. I wasted those first precious months obsessed and stressed with BFing, constantly pumping, and bouncing my distressed baby.

Stop torturing yourself and enjoy your new family.

Hi everyone. Thank you again for your kindness and suggestions. Some background. I have been dairy free for a while now and not seeing much improvements since. What I haven’t tried is going soya free. The episodes have been fairly constant but there are times where she isn’t so bad and so I wonder if it is an allergen as opposed to tongue tie, which I thought would affect every feed? correct me if wrong please.

the paediatrician basically said “she’ll grow out of it”. Didn’t seem to know there were tongue tie specialists who could check my baby out until I asked her to look it up and now is searching for somewhere to refer me. She wanted me to up the medication. I disagreed with this as I don’t think my baby has GERD.
She has referred us to a dietician to assess some options as baby has now dropped on the centile chart, something I had noticed was slowing and declining some time ago but no one took me seriously. nappies are heavy and wet, dirty, regularly. I have significantly upped the number of feeds and started to wake my baby up at night to feed against HV and GP advice, because I am so worried about her weight.

I don’t have much support other than my partner who is at work most days. The thought of making up bottles really stresses me out. I know it’s irrational but it’s just how I feel.

I realise now that the clinic is run by peer supporters and not IBCLC. Oh my goodness. Have I just wasted a ton of time going there??

is this a really crazy thought … your comment about regular formula made me wonder. What if I did a sort of reverse elimination diet? I haven’t had dairy for a while but I’m suddenly suspecting soy after reading everyone’s comments. What if I just had a meal that was soy heavy and see if it flares up? Is that really risky and/or cruel? I can’t imagine things being worse than they are now.

Thank you for sharing and I think your advice is what I’d say to anyone else in my position too! I don’t know why I don’t think I can rest until I get to the bottom of this.

For delayed allergies this is how they are diagnosed.

My daughter has a lot of allergies and it went didn't get to symptom free until 15 months. I took foods out of my diet and then in a good day where we didn't have any obvious symptoms I tried a lot of the food to see if symptoms returned. With egg I did an egg mayo sandwich for example. Within an hour we she was screaming and refusing to feed!

Oh my goodness! I didn’t realise you could tell within an hour, thought it might be closer to 24hrs. I don’t know what to do…

For we had some quick reactions - 20 minutes (beef) but symptoms peaked at 36ish hours. Egg was 1h. When she had an Oz of formula with coconut in that was pretty quick too within the hour and she then screamed continuously from 7 pm until 3am when she ran out of steam

Most other reactions for us were between 12 and 72h. The feeding aversion we noticed was quite an early symptom of a reaction but she didn't always get this. It's so difficult as it is very varied. Guidelines say that delayed reactions occur between 2 and 72h after eating the food

Our food and behaviour diaries were very informative on more subtle signs of a reaction such as the feeding aversion but also needing to be held and paced and being harder to keep occupied

No no not at all - in fact peer support groups are generally very good, because they have the breadth of experience of all the peers.

It shouldn't just be peer support though - there ought to be a leader who has more training rather than just the peer support training? Who is running the group?