3 week old grunts non stop and I'm worried

[irnbr00]

So my baby girl has not been very happy since the moment we brought her home. At first we thought it was reflux, she cries quite a lot, is fussy/whinges constantly. She is constantly arching her back or tensing and makes these awful grunting noises throughout the day, especially during and after she's been fed. I'll take the bottle away and she does this biiiig painful sounding grunting which is followed by a cry and she goes all red in the process.

She doesn't really vomit milk back up, she's done it maybe 3 times since we've brought her home. She does spit up a little bit sometimes and is a terribly messy eater to the point where her bibs soak through to her clothes. She coughs at least a couple times a day, and chokes sometimes when I'm feeding her. She sneezes loads and sounds congested often.

We have been giving her gavison for the past couple of days but it hasn't done anything. I'm just worried that its not actually reflux and something else. She has been checked over by midwives/health visitor and GP and none of any immediate concerns. The constant painful sounding grunting is really getting to me, she is so red all of the time. I know baby's are still trying to work out how to poop/fart and that can cause grunting but it just puts me on edge, I feel like I'm constantly worrying about her.

Our next course of action as planned by the GP is to change her formula to one without cows milk protein to see if that makes a difference.

Has anyone had any experience with this constant grunting and their baby just constantly sounding/looking uncomfortable? Does it sound like reflux even if she is completely happy to drink from a bottle and doesn't cry during feeds? As soon as she gains consciousness she just seems so unhappy and its breaking my heart but also overwhelming me 🙁

(Baby is formula fed)

It does sound like she has reflux. What worked for mine was adding thickener to their bottles. I used Carobel and it was a game changer. You could instead buy the Confort version of whatever formula you use. But not both together. What you're describing is exactly how two of mine were, right down to the grunting which is hard to listen to. Poor baby is just in discomfort, I would really recommend the Carobel and see how it goes. Try not to worry, as it will pass eventually, and enjoy your beautiful baby.

I have a 6 week old who was very noisy and uncomfy, I knew he had a tongue tie as one midwife mentioned it but no one else picked up on it but also as he was bottle fed they wouldn’t do anything anyway as he fed. . We had it cut last week and the comfort levels are noticeable better he arches his back almost never and his bibs which were previously soaked are now dry after feeding. His tongue wasn’t moving at all so loads of air was going down and getting trapped. The improvement on that has been huge.

I imagine you would know if your little one has tongue tie but it is certainly worth just double checking as I can’t tell you how much happier I am now having had it dealt with

My LG was like this and she also had stridor - noisy in breaths while feeding. She seemed to be struggling to breath and would wake herself up because of it. She also brought back her milk a lot.

Of course they thought it was reflux. It wasn't reflux.

Not one professional in our sphere knew what was going on until we ended up in the pediatric ward when she was 6 weeks old.

It was a floppy larynx. Self resolving but so so worrying at the time. We coslept in the end so she could lay on her side to breath easier. She snored and grunted in her sleep for years, but she's 10 now and doesn't any more.

Good luck working it out.

It does sound like it could be laryngomalacia- floppy larynx. Or reflux. Videos are incredibly helpful for HCPs, so if you go to the GP I’d go armed with some of those.

My son had silent reflux with awful congestion in his nose, amongst some of the other symptoms you mention. He had CMPA. He wasn't really sicky either, but in awful discomfort. I cut out dairy, and then soya shortly after and he was fine. Definitely worth investigating if other things don't work.