Feeding worries & 4 month confusion

[Boo2531]

Long post sorry! FTM here and so confused with conflicting advice and not sure if its just 4-month trenches. Little one is 16 weeks today and suffers with spit up and sick after feeding and throughout the day. Originally started EBF and baby was doing very well growth wise but unfortunately had to transition to exclusively pumping for various reasons. Over the last 4/6 weeks her weight gain has dropped, not quite 2 centiles but very close, we have another weigh in this week. Shes been on meds for reflux but that created more issues like severe constipation. Its now expected that she may have CMPA and so we are slowly transitioning her onto aptamil pepti as she isn't taking it well on its own. The health visitor suggested sticking with my milk originally as she seems to be coping but obviously now the weight gain is a concern. Also, really struggling to get her to take more than 4oz feeds at a time, she was on 4.5oz feeds. Has anyone else had experience of this?

For the past 5ish weeks, she has been so needy and isn't happy unless being held, won't nap for more than 30 minutes at a time during the day and also doesn't settle after 4.30/5.30am. I'm told its the 4 month regression but 5 weeks in with no change I'm wondering if that is the case.

Really just looking to see if anyone is in a similar position and if it really is just a phase and we've got to just ride through it.

Hi Boo2531

My situation is pretty similar to yours. My baby is 14 weeks (but born prematurely at 33 weeks so also has a corrected age of 7 weeks).

She does not nap during the day apart from the odd 10 minute cat nap. She does go down nicely at 6pm and sleeps until 10-11ish then wakes every 2-3 hours for a feed. But since the clocks changed she’s been waking at 4am - this week has been soo hard. I’ve been going to bed at 7pm lol.

My baby hasn’t been diagnosed with any sort of reflux but she does have the tummy spasm thing where her belly goes hard and she screams the house down. When this started the Neo Natal nurse said it was totally normal and will stop around 4-6 months.

Things I do to help her -

• Blast Avril Levigne Sk8er Boi - instantly stops her crying
• Add Coilief to each bottle (I EBM also)
• intermittently use Infocal and Gripe Water - I think the gripe water makes a huge difference

I got spooked a few weeks ago when babies weight dropped a little. She just wasn’t wanting as much because of the tummy spasms so I fed her 2oz every hour or 2 rather than 4oz every 3 hours or so.

I am not sure if this is right / wrong as I am a first time mum but the things I have been doing do get her settled.

sorry I forgot to add - with the tummy spasm thing, baby is basically trying to strain a poo but she’s also clenching her bum at the same time. At one point she didn’t poo for 6 days! One thing that helped with this (and I know this isn’t for everyone) but I sat her on a top hat potty - instant poo. Now everytime she makes the ‘EH EH EH’ poo sounds we pop her on the potty and she poos! I think it helps that her knees are by her tummy.

Are you persevering with the reflux meds or have you stopped them due to the constipation?

If you are already EBF /exclusively pumping, just remove all dairy and soy from.your diet. It's a million times easier than dealing with the absolute nightmare of hydrolyzed --> dairy free formula. My DS has CMPA (still has it age 2.5) and I made this decision around the same age as I was overwhelmed with how tricky the dairy free stuff was.

And mine NEVER took more than 3.5 oz (US oz) of breastmilk per feed. Never. It was usually 2-3oz. It used to piss me off as I got 4-5oz of milk per pumping session and I sort of felt cheated from my efforts 😂²

Have you got some qualified breastfeeding support (not HV unless she’s a qualified infant feeding HV) you can ring the national breastfeeding helpline or NCT infant feeding line.

Transitioning to formula if CMPA is suspected isn’t a great idea. Formula is made of cows milk, breastmilk isn’t. (I have a CMPA kid, never reacted to my milk)

It is possible that the bottle feeding technique needs some adjustment. Why the move to pumping if breastfeeding was going well?

Are you doing paced bottle feeding? Was it latching/feeding issues that led to transitioning to pumping? Well done on the pumping it’s very hard work.