Windy 4 week old baby

[Harvey19]

Hi,

My baby is now 4 weeks. He seems to have struggled with wind from quite early on. He is formula fed and started off on cow and gate and after one week changed to cow and gate comfort as he was clearly struggling. This definitely helped, he was less sick and drunk from the bottle so much better but over the last couple of weeks his wind seems to have got worse. We now use tommee tippee anti colic bottles. He was on infacol for a couple of weeks which seemed effective but that then wore off and he stopped burping. We tried gripe water but that night had an awful night, couldn’t feed properly kept being sick so now we’re trying dentinox as a last attempt to help him, but can only use that in 6 feeds. He does seem more settled with the dentinox burping better.
He seems to struggle with bottom wind, he will feed and start squirming wind straining and then get angry and come off the bottle making feeding very slow. He is a big baby was 9 pound 10 when born and has about 4 oz but I feel like he wants more but struggles because of the wind. At night after his first chunk of sleep he constantly wakes every 20/30 mins - 1 hour varies and seems to be struggling. So last night this was from 2 am
Sorry for the long post I’m just not sure what else we could try. Could changing do a different comfort milk help? Thanks

I’d look at seeing a cranial osteopath, they are miracle workers in my opinion and worked wonders with my daughter who had terrible wind then constipation! Two sessions and I had a different baby.

A swaddle may help calm baby down when he gets agitated. You can feed baby while in the swaddle.

Also, are you giving a dummy? Recommended for digestion issues and reduces SIDS risk. Also helps allow a bottle fed baby to comfort suck.

4oz is plenty for a baby this age/size. In fact it is on large size for a 4 week old. Stomach volume means you are unlikely to get more milk into baby. Instead feed more frequently (less gap between feeds). Not unusual to give a full feed every 2h at this age, especially a bigger baby.

Finally - comfort milk can actually make digestion issues worse. Or at best just mask whatever the actual problem is. Rather than changing brands I'd be more inclined to go back to First Milk. Then:

● Feed more frequently (make 10 4oz bottles per day - 7am 9am 11am 1pm 3pm 5pm 7pm 9pm 11pm, then an extra for just In case).
● Check your bottle feeding positioning and technique is good, to avoid wind (Google this)
● Check your winding techniques are good (again google) and try a few different winding positions.
● Get baby to have a nap/sleep between all of these 2 hourly feeds. Over tiredness will affect feeding.
● Swaddle before feeding/winding to help baby sleep after the feed
● Dummy for any times baby is upset when not feeding. Babies need to suck to calm themselves, but get frustrated when they cannot suck because stomach is full.

Thank you for your replies!
He has been taking less milk today 2-3 oz every 2.5/ 3 hours and struggling so I phoned the health visitor for some advice and whether to switch back to the regular formula. She has suggested to phone the gp Monday to discuss possible allergy which is something I hadn’t thought of, but from what I described she said it’s a possibility so will see what they say. Just got to get through the weekend!