Hi all,
I'm new here and am in desperate need of advice... A bit of background first...
My little boy arrived 3 weeks ago by c section (almost 2 weeks late) and unfortunately due to staff/bed shortages I got stuck on the labour ward all day after his birth and didn't get any help with breastfeeding until he was 24 hours old at which point he showed no interest. I was told to leave it and he would eat when he was hungry, but by 36 hours he was screaming with hunger at which point I gave him a bottle. He was very forcefully sick with each bottle, which I was told was due to him being 'muscosy' but I continued to offer the breast before each feed and on the 3rd day he took it and I have breastfed exclusively up until a few days ago since then. Once we got home, the sickness settled down to what I would consider normal baby sick and apart from wanting to feed LOTS (which i understand is normal (he was fine) until about 10 days ago when the sickness suddenly returned. It started sporadically at first with no real pattern (happened both at breast and at bottle of expressed milk) but when it did happen it would come out of his nose etc., be very forceful (though not projectile) and upset him for ages afterwards! I mentioned this to GP and HV but as he is gaining weight nicely (birth 8lb 10oz, now 10lb 2oz) they said not to worry. He is also very whingey/grizzly and seems unhappy and uncomfortable most of the time and sometimes screams inconsolably for no apparent reason for hours on end. On Friday afternoon through to Saturday morning he literally brought back up every feed straight away and was very unhappy so i took him to the doctors who diagnosed him with reflux. We were prescribed infant gaviscon which I have been administering on a spoon prior to breastfeeding which is helping a bit, but not much. Anyway, in amongst all this I decided (by instinct) to experiment with some formula. I have been giving one bottle a day (4 oz) for the last few days of cow and gate comfort (mixed with gaviscon) and it stays down without any ill effects (except his poo seems much less frequent) so yesterday I tried 2 formula feeds and again, they both stayed down where as all his breastfeeds came up (in part at least). So here's my dilemma... every single piece of advice I can find online/in books/from health professionals/breastfeeding support groups (have tried them all) say that breast feeding is best for reflux and bottle feeding aggravates it, which is why I'm very hesitant to just switch to formula. However, why isn't the formula making him sick when my breast milk seems to be?! My partner can't understand this 'dilemma' and just thinks we should switch to formula for all his feeds but I know if I do that and then the formula does make his reflux worse, there's no going back to breastmilk! I don't know whether to a) continue to mix feed and hope he gets better with time b) bite the bullet and switch to formula and hope it continues to agree with him or c)give him purely formula for a couple of days whilst expressing regularly to keep my milk supply up just incase. My instinct is telling me it's my breastmilk making him sick but my GP and HV say that could no way be the case?! I picked him up this morning to find he had vomited in his sleep (worrying) and was soaking wet (worrying!) I breastfed him at 8 which seemed to stay down OK, and then again at 10 which immediately came right back up all over me, him and the sofa... Also there's the incredible guilt to deal with each time I formula feed I feel like I'm giving him second best, maybe that's my hormones though?! Any advice would be much appreciated< i'm at the end of my tether and just seem to cry all day!