Trapped wind/poo 3-4 month old baby

[TiredMummaChlo]

Our baby seems to have suffered digestive issues since about two weeks old. She is EBF with a nipple shield . I cut out diary and soy when she was just under a month old. It seemed like her skin (rash) improved. But all other symptoms (e.g. reflux, muscousy explosive poo, irritability) continued. The irritability has improved somewhat with age and being able to be a little distracted.
We were recently told to reintroduce dairy to trial if symptoms come back. I think they got marginally worse so I am going to stop again now.
I feel like she has such a weird pattern of movement. It seems like she spends the vast majority of her awake hours crunching over and making "ehh" noises. Sometimes this is following by lots of gas, wet wind and poo after a long period of time. Sometimes she seems marginally happier, but it's not long until the crunching starts again. Occasionally she will start arching or throwing herself back too, and you can sometimes hear gurgling and reflux come up just before the arching. She is very refluxy too.
I just want to know whether anyone else has experienced a baby like this? Like constant gastric issues at coming up to four months, and still a reasonably irritable baby.
As an aside, we do have other concerns about her development and are due to see neurology in about 1.5 months time. Paediatricians have been largely unconcerned about her development so far but are monitoring. Just hard to tell whether some of her issues are allergies, trapped wind, and reflux, or a part of a bigger picture of her development
Thanks all

I can totally sympathise. My DS had undiagnosed Tongue tie which gave him severe reflux symptoms. Has your DD been checked for this?

Start a food diary! The first things to keep an eye on are eggs, wheat and oats. Rather than doing a full elimination of each food cut it out only for 3-5 days then eat a lot of the food for a day on a goodish day and see if the symptoms are worse in the following 2-3 days.

My daughter has a told of 20 allergies most of which we identified when I was breastfeeding her. It was a nightmare to figure out and my food diaries were my best friends. She didn't reach symptom free until 15 months. I identified everything by doing short removal and reintroductions. In the meantime try not to eat very different foods from one day to the next. So don't each Italian foods one day, a curry the next day British foods the day after. Do the same types of ingredients for 2 or 3 days in a row. Because it can take up to 3 days to see a reaction this can help to reduce the number of ingredients to juggle in that window and make patterns easier to spot. Remember any food can be an allergen not just the top14. My daughter is allergic to more vegetables than things on the top14 list!

Also, have you tried treating the reflux? My daughters reflux was made worse by allergies but she has it in addition to her allergies and aged 3 causes us more issues than her allergies

@CadyEastman thank you, it's tough having a baby who seems uncomfortable and unsettled. Yes she had tongue tie cut at about a month old. I think the reflux stayed the same for her to be honest.
@Superscientist thank you for that, I never really thought to do it that way, eliminate for a short ish period before a bigish reintro. Looks like a good diary could be the next step for us. I will wait for the reintro of dairy to clear first.
Did either of you find your baby would often "crunch" over with their discomfort? Or like they are struggling to pass wind/poo?

She had issues with wind once she was weaning she had real difficulties with trapped wind if she had eaten a lot of wheat/gluten. Stools were either liquid that passed easily or very solid due to gaviscon. She had a stool softener for a while.
She was generally very screamy and rigid and back arching. It's hard to remember the details of what scream was what as she's nearly 4 and I've blocked out most of her first year!
The short tests helped me to get through the possibilities much quicker and avoid a total elimination diet. I was losing weight rapidly so I needed to look after my health so didn't want to unnecessarily restrict my diet for a prolonged period of time. Be careful with food groups too. We learnt this the hard way when I swapped tomatoes for red peppers and it turns out she's allergic to all nightshades except potatoes. From then I removed all of the group until I tested the one I wanted to test. If that was ok I added all the food group back. If it wasn't ok I then tested the other foods overs the following weeks depending on how frequently they were normally in my diet

Appreciate this is an old thread, but my 14 week old is exactly the same as this @TiredMummaChlo ! I haven’t heard of anyone else’s baby do the crunching and the noise - did you ever get to the bottom of it? Is it still going on?

Hi!
I'll answer the easy bit first - no it's not still going on. She turns one year old in 15 days.
With regards to whether we got to the bottom of it - not exactly. I suspect it was a mix of many factors.
Firstly, she is a super active and FOMO baby. She doesn't ever stop, she never has. She's always wanted to reach/roll/crawl/stand/walk - or whatever the next milestone is. So some of the crunching was her being active (see: https://www.milestonesandmotherhood.com/blog/whats-up-with-the-baby-crunch#:~:text=ANSWER%2D%20Around%20month%203%20of,see%20that%20baby%20%E2%80%9Ccrunch%E2%80%9D. ). We had an appointment with neurology and he said that she is just strong.
Secondly, her birth was an emergency C-Section followed by antibiotics. Essentially her gut microbiome was destroyed! She was so so reflux-y and had stomach issues. Some of it was struggles with pooing! Again, with milk and solids she's outgrown all of her sensitivities too.
Younger babies do tend to do odd things and move in funny ways. Generally they aren't a cause for concern and they do seem to grow out of these things.
I hope that helps. Happy to talk or answer any qs, although its only my own limited experience.

Super helpful and absolutely chimes without experience!! Ours is also a very interested baby and wants to be doing far more than he’s able to, so we’ve always suspected frustration might be a part of it. He is, as my mum’s said from day 1, “a baby who doesn’t want to be a baby”.
Interestingly, he also had a lot of anti-biotics at four days old - I guess I’d hoped his gut biome might have been in recovery by now, but at least there is light on the horizon that it won’t be like this forever!!

Hahaa that's funny, I have joked in the past about my girl not being happy about being a baby 😂. They sound like kindred spirits!
She was EBF and I had a long course of antibiotics too. So it didn't help that I didn't have good bacteria to pass on either. Anyway, if tummy troubles is part of it for your baby it will definitely get better.
Glad to help in a small way! 😊

Wow! I love the internet. This is exactly my boy as well.. crunching up to the side, making the eh eh eh sound seems to be a little better after passing wind but not for long and he’s reaching all his milestones so fast too!! He’s super strong. Hate to see him in what seems to be a bit of pain as this has only started in the last 24 hours. I have given gripe water but unsure if he needs a dr visit. The thing is he does settle but it’s interrupting naps not sure what to do.. happy to read your posts and read similar experiences

Glad you found the post, it is amazing what you can find on mumsnet 😂 I hope your boy is okay!
My girl did go to drs/dieticians but there wasn't much (anything) they could do. We had Gaviscon for occasional EBM. I tried massage, obviously she hated it - ripping her hands and legs away. She just outgrew it all eventually, and became more mobile.