Breastfed baby v gassy and in pain

[Jada2024]

My breastfed (5 week old) baby seems in pain a lot. No naps during the day she sleeps for a few minutes and wakes screaming in pain. She cries then passes gas relaxes for a few seconds or minutes and then is screaming when she needs to pass gas again. She burps and spits up a lot as well. Sometimes after feeding she will bring up a good bit of undigested milk other times awhile later it's more frothy looking.
She burps farts and spits up a lot more than my first and Seems in pain more also.

Any advice? Anything I should or should not eat?
We do tummy time spend ages burping her after feeds move her legs around and I've tried tummy massages.
I'm wondering if allergies are a possibility also but not sure what to cut out!

Just awful seeing her in pain

Try dairy, but I'd bring her to GP as it sounds quite extreme, and she needs her sleep, as do you.

Definitely try cutting dairy but I'd take her to GP because she sounds possibly reflux too. My little one has cmpa and the pain and wind you described was exactly how he was before I stopped dairy formula

Sounds exactly like my daughter was at this stage. I went to a GP, they gave me colic drops (didn't work). I got a second opinion and was told to cut out dairy from my diet. Within one week I had a completely different baby! I tried reintroducing dairy a couple of times at 4, 5 and 6 months. Each time we had vomiting and some very loud farts! Its pretty common, most babies grow out of it. But still, those first few weeks were awful, not knowing what was wrong. Make sure you see a GP though, just in case. Best of luck and congratulations on your little one

My baby was the same and I cut out dairy and the difference was day and night... she was 100% happier, slept better and was way more content. She grew out of it by about 15 months too and now drinks full fat milk easily.

Good luck and congratulations.

This is unceasingly common and unfortunately there is a lot of bad advice out there, including from health professionals.
Don't try dairy instead of breast milk! as pp said
the problem
is likely dairy and soya allergy being passed through your breast milk, try cutting both from your diet for 3 days
and you should see a huge improvement.
It must be very hard for you, my son's wife was exhausted by it all.
I say soya too as they are often a dual allergy. Re introduce Soya once thing have improved and then you will know if that is also a problem, good luck!

Thanks all. Brought her to the GP they said they generally don't diagnose reflux or allergies until 3/4 months as its hard to know if its just normal spit up. Was told to just burp her loads and space out feeds to every 2 or 3 hours instead of feeding on demand but I'm finding this tough as shes just crying non stop between feeds the only thing that settles her is being on the boob.
I'm going to try cutting out potential allergens and seeing if it helps. How strict would I need to be? I know milk butter cheese would be a no but do I need to read the ingredients on everything to see if it may contain milk? Is goats milk ok? I don't drink a huge amount of milk only in coffee but thats where id struggle most!

My daughter had symptoms of cmpa at 10 days. She was 17 weeks by the time she was diagnosed by which point she cried for 16-20h a day and I had severe pnd and psychosis. She ended up with 20 confirmed allergies and I ended up in a mother and baby unit. I was vulnerable to pnd mental health crisis but it was acknowledged that 4 months of an unsettled baby was a significant factor in my poor mental health. She started reflux treatment at 6 weeks but it was 17 weeks before she was in a proper dose as her GP was under medicating her, she just kept telling me reflux was a washing problem - 5-20 poos a day when you are doing cloth nappies is a washing problem, mostly silent reflux isn't! You absolutely can get reflux treated before 3 months you absolutely can get cmpa diagnosed before 3 months. I would try removing dairy, limiting soya and see a different GP.

With my daughter I cut out all dairy (even 'may contain milk'). I did that for 2-3 weeks to detox and then gradually introduced foods that contained dairy to see how much she could tolerate, still avoiding the obvious ones like milk butter, cheese.

Just a side note, I also think I was overfeeding my daughter at first because she loved being on the boob. I started using some different soothing strategies, lullabies, rocking, bum-patting, white noise etc. That definitely helped.

It gets better, those first few weeks are rough.

I know it sounds silly but I would feed more frequently. Like almost constantly. What can happen in the early days is your let down can be a bit forceful which can lead to gulping and more spit ups. Feeding really frequently means less milk is building up and the elt down is less forceful.

Other option is hand expressing to get the first let down then attach baby.
Or try koala hold where baby is sitting upright supported by a hand behind the next. This position puts little gentle pressure on baby's tummy which can be soothing.
A baby carrier between feeds to help keep baby upright might help baby get some more sleep during the day

What worked for me was lying down with the baby and rubbing his back fairly briskly. I'd shush and talk quietly at the same time. I'd have to do it for quite a while but eventually he would settle. He'd get himself in an awful state sometimes but this worked most of the time.

You can try this upright as well, but I found it was easier if he was lying on his left side. The stomach lies in the body in such a way that if you are on your left side, it's better for digestion. Plus lying down meant he could drift off to sleep.

If you're ever feeling sick yourself, lying on your left side can help ease it.

I'd be super strict OP, if you're going to cut diary (and soya) then read all the labels etc and hopefully you should see a quick result.
Try a few milks for your tea until you find one that works - I use oat milk the barista version
Soya is a bit harder imo, it is in everything! Jackson's bread is soya free
Once you get going you will quickly work out what is okay and what isn't, borboun biscuits tend to always be safe!

My DC went through a short phase of this. On the doctor’s recommendation, I used Infacol for a couple of weeks. That helped enormously and then it seemed to resolve by itself.

My lovely doctor was very reassuring and said, given how it resolved, it was just a developmental stage.

ETA: also google baby burping techniques. Some work better than others and some babies just need to be burped more than others.

This is really poor advice - you can't not feed a BF baby on demand. It literally works on a supply and demand basis. BF babies don't take in a prescribed amount each feed, they take what they need at that moment which means they might be hungry one hour later or three. They also cluster feed at times to build your supply.

Do you have an infant feeding team in your area or any form of breastfeeding support? It's probably worthwhile getting some professional advice and support. Things like positioning and attachment (eg laid back feeding) can help.

Honestly, along with dairy, cutting out all cauliflower/broccoli/sprouts/anything that made ME gassy made a huge difference for DS. Good luck. It's so upsetting to see them miserable

What are the nappies like? Thats a big indicator of allergy. And Yes you need to be very strict to test whether it's an allergy. There are so many good alternatives that a milk exclusion is very easy. But you should see a difference very quickly.

Also look into the effects of oversupply and fast letdown this can cause similar issues

Also goats milk is not ok. Nor is soya. The protein structure is too similar. Oat is probably your best bet although there is also coconut, pea and almond

Your dr is also wrong. They do diagnose much earlier than3/4 months. GPs are just often woefully ill informed about paediatric allergy

a PP mentioned nappies, forgot about them, it's a good indicator- if there is mucus allergy is very likely. Cut out ALL dairy and see the difference.

Nothing extreme with the nappies. I did notice they changed from being seedy to instead being a bit frothy maybe a bit mucusy but nothing extreme. Her bottom does get quite red. She has also gotten spots usually a small patch of them together but they only last a few hours and don't seem itchy. I assumed either heat or baby acne (as she also gets the occasional single spot on her face for a few hours)

I've cut out dairy (and soy I've just been eating mostly plain natural foods) and after about 36 hours she seemed more settled more content not screaming as much and less spit up. Maybe a total coincidence and something else has settled her as I thought it would take days to notice a difference? But will keep to a plain diet and hope she stays settled

Yeah I did not like the idea of not feeding her for hours. They felt she was just sucking for comfort. But it was the only thing helping when she was screaming in pain..
I'm going to try attending a breastfeeding group. So far when I tried to get help (early on I had blisters and was in pain) I was just told she seemed to have a good latch

I think I may have been over feeding her also but nothing was bringing her comfort other than being on the boob. Today she is more settled and rocking patting etc is giving her enough comfort but prior to this she was just screaming any time she wasn't attached

That must of been really tough for you and I do think having an unsettled baby really affects mental health. I couldn't space out her feeds like I was told to listening to her cry and scream just made me want to cry! Everyone seemed to be unsure on what I should do. Maybe it's colic maybe I'm not burping her enough maybe it's normal spit up maybe she just wants to be held. But this screaming does not seem normal to me nor does the amount of spit up.
She's a bit more settled today and I'm hoping whatever was causing it is starting to resolve.

The frothy stools with muscus is very telling, I am sure you will see a continuous improvement now you've cut out dairy/soya.
Whoever told you to let her cry is woefully old fashioned, how would they like having a lot of pain and being left to suffer without the comfort of a mother.
Yes, it's true, you can train babies out of asking for help - but watch out for how that 'independence' comes back to bite the parent on the arse later though

She went down to second length feeds and on and off after each suck. She had a poor latch because of this. The infant feeding team told me "to be a tough momma and not let her feed unless she was willing to latch "properly""
She was hard enough to feed without trying to get a proper latch. My HV came to see me the next morning and I was utterly broken after just a morning of trying to not let feed with a shallow latch. She said if her shallow feeding wasn't causing me pain and she was getting enough milk leave her be. Getting her reflux and allergies sorted improved her latch over night. As soon as feeding wasn't causing her pain she was happy to feed. It became a really early warning sign I had eaten something she was allergic too.

My two HV (moved at 2y) have helped me through some really tricky times. They offered listening appointments where they come to see mum not baby. It was really helpful to have someone to talk to about finding an unsettled baby a challenge

I hope that you continue to see an improvement. It might be worth starting a food diary in case things change as you expand your foods. We had a good period initially on a meat potatoes and veg diet but once we started adventuring into pasta/rice and sauce she went worse again. It was quite evident that I was eating more tomatoes and coconut. She was awful every time I had baked beans. Turned out she has a nightshade allergy (tomatoes) and a coconut allergy.

I will say in allergy circles it is highly unusual to have the number of allergies my daughter has. The vast majority of babies will have no more than 1-3 - dairy, soya and eggs are the most common followed by gluten.

@Jada2024 that's quite normal. Boob is a baby's safe place. I just started to try other techniques. It got a lot easier when she started to self soothe. Sounds like you are doing a fabulous job x

Hi Jada I’m just checking to see has this resolved for your little one. What was the outcome. I have a 7 week old with the same issues and it’s really hard. She is so windy and seems in pain from it, brings up also curdled milk same as you described, and unsettled most of the time with wind.