My breast milk is causing my baby pain ?

[August21yellowbaby]

Since my son was born 3 weeks ago he's been very unsettled and clearly in pain after feeds
Kept being told it was just colic but I knew there was something wrong

Anyway the other day I thought i was going to try him on bottles for a day (formula) and see if he was any better and he was so much more settled. No crying all day or night

So I thought it must be the latch causing him to swollow air so I decided to pump the breast milk for him and bottle feed from then on

Within minutes of giving him breast milk in a bottle he was screaming in pain again, I couldn't believe it. It must be the breast milk but I don't understand what could be wrong with it

I'm so sad as I was hoping for a lovely breastfeeding journey again especially as he's my second and last baby:(

He's been on formula now for a few days and he's so settled and comfortable, it would be selfish of me to continue the breastfeeding just for my sake, but I really want to know what it could be and if there's any last minute things I could change to stop my milk affecting him before I fully dry up and call it quits :(

The only thing it's likely to be is an allergen so it's worth a GP visit as if it's impacting him through milk it'll be worse if he eats it directly.

It took me a year to dry up although I did feed for a long time. If you change your mind later it is possible to relactate, just takes some time.

My children both reacted to allergens through my breast milk. Unlikely to be dairy given formula is fine. Could you keep a food diary?

Awww no, your poor baby and poor you, it's so so stressful seeing your baby in pain. It does sound like an allergy or intolerance. Egg is a fairly common one. But it could be anything.

Might it be a wheat (Gluten) allergy. Maybe stop eating anything with wheat and see if it’s any better. Would be a real shame to give up breast feeding f you could sus out the allergen.
Sending hugs and hand hold

As others said, it could be something you're eating - eggs, dairy, wheat, caffeine... Keep a diary of how baby is free each feed and what you've been eating.

Do you have infant feeding support locally?

My sister had to give up eggs completely when she was breastfeeding recently. Same problem. She has coeliac disease so is gluten free anyway. Apparently its quite common with eggs. Who knew?