help needed with sleep/wind problem

[yoda]

Hi all,

I'm new here and am looking for some advice for my 8wk old son, who i adore but i am finding very challenging at the moment.

He is having about 6 feeds a day of 5-6oz bottles and seems to suffer from trapped wind, although this doesn't appear to be a problem at night. We have changed his milk from SMA white to Omneo which seemed to make him better - but in the last week he has started whingeing/crying/screaming after an hour or so after his feeds during the day. Has anyone else had this ?? We have tried infacol, gripe water and have just started him on colief and changed his milk to aptamil to see if this is any better ! Any suggestions would be welcome as the crying/screaming is worse now than he has ever been - will it ever get better !

My son is 13lb 2oz and generally sleeps 6-8 hours at night, starting about 9.30pm - but he doesn't nap very much at all during the day, mainly due to the wind/tummy cramps that he appears to have. Could this be overtiredness manifesting as pain ??

Thanks

Is the teat you are using appropriate for his age ? Just a thought.... Welcome to Mumsnet

Hiya,

i'm using the no.2 teat on the avent bottles (comes with the bottle), i think it is the medium flow teat.

Thanks for the welcome !

Hi Yoda. Welcome.

Sorry to hear things are tough for you at the moment. It sounds to me like colic, and unfortunately theres not much you can do for babies like your son who suffer badly with it. My DD only had very mild colic so we found infacol very helpful, we also found that she preferred being held upright to being lay down. With regards to it getting better, if it is colic it should clear up by the time your DS hits 12 weeks.

Have you approached your GP or Health Visitor for advice ?

Have heard lots of good things about the Dr Brown bottles with a special anti-colic system. They're expensive but I've heard that they are very effective. I think mothercare sells them, so does my local tesco store.

You can view and buy them on the mothercare website here

Hi yoda

I really feel for you because DD1 had terrible colic in her first 3 months. Nothing seemed to give her any relief - we tried infacol and gripe water - and it was so upsetting watching her scream and writhe as though in agony. But be assured that it WILL get better. You may just have to grit your teeth and just get through the next month as the colic usually disappears around 12 weeks, although it may well go earlier (DD1 had it badly between 2-7wks then it slowly got better).

First of all 5-6 feeds of 5-6oz per day sounds like a lot to me but I am absolutely no expert - I just can't believe a breast-fed baby would get that much. Do you think he is eating too much? I would suggest asking your health visitor for advice (if she's any good).

Secondly, the thicker formula milks for hungrier babies are apparently notorious for causing some tummy discomfort and my daughter was particularly bad on the Omneo Comfort. She didn't think much of SMA either. Many maternity nurses say they are very stodgy and that babies find them hard to digest. My daughter went on to Aptamil at 5 months and was very happy with it, so fingers crossed that will work for you.

If you are breastfeeding at all, I would recommend drinking lots of fennel tea and taking a good-quality probiotic supplement, both of which worked for me. Ask your health visitor if you can try and give your baby a bottle of very weak fennel tea.

If it's any consolation I think ALL babies suffer from tummy pains at some time - they are processing such huge quantities of milk and growing so fast that there are always a few problems in the early days.

What's worked for me with DD2 is putting her down on her front for daytime naps. I am not advocating that you should do this due to the increased risk of SIDS that is associated with babies sleeping on their fronts, but I personally find that DD2 will sleep for much longer during the day if I put her down on her front on a good hard cot mattress in a well-ventilated room. I stay close by and check her constantly (so sadly can't take advantage of longer naps to have a sleep myself) but at least I get some peace and quiet and some time to myself.

Finally, 6-8 hours at night sounds fantastic for an 8wk old. DD2 is now 10wks and the best I can expect is 5-6hrs. Maybe the lack of daytime naps is the price you have to pay for a reasonably undisturbed night?

Hope it gets better soon!

hi yoda,ive posted this before,my son suffered badly with colic and i tried everything my mum told me to massage his belly with an egg(still in the shell)just going around in circles on babys belly,it work for my ds,good luck i know how awful it is!!

Yoda - don't change the milk again. Stick with Aptamil because that is what you are on just now. Second stage milks are much more difficult for babies to digest and can make colic problems worse. Keeping changing milks compounds the problem. The Dr Brown bottles are associated with less colic so they would be worth a try. The baby is more able to control milk flow with them. Colic is extremely common in babies of this age whether breast or bottle fed. Sucking a dummy has been shown to help colic as well. Hopefully you will see an improvement around the 12 week mark. He certainly is doing well at night.

by the way anto - I am sure B/F babies get more kiln than that

I meant milk! I could express 8oz at a time, sometimes. Varied a great deal. Babies get more milk out than you do when expressing

Hi Yoda

Have been thinking of your predicament and have a couple of practical suggestions.

Have you tried swaddling your baby? Sometimes they like the feeling of safety and security it gives. I also found a dummy useful for colicky episodes. Would swaddle the baby tightly then shove the dummy in and would usually have to hold it in place once DD1 had started sucking on it, but at least she was quiet for a while.

The most important thing is to hang on to your sanity in the face of lots of crying and screaming. DH and I used to do shifts in the evening - 1 hr on and 1hr off. When you just have to cope with 60mins of it at a time it isn't that bad. DH wasn't as affected by the crying as I was. He'd just put the subtitles on the TV and stand in front of it holding DD1 in the 'tiger in the trees' hold - her body along his lower arm with her arms and legs hanging down - quite effective, as was holding her back against his hip with his arm over her tummy (health visitor showed us both these alternative holding positions, which are supposed to be good for colicky babies). Meanwhile I would go to the furthest corner of the house and lie down/read a book/have a bath/enjoy the silence. If you live in a small flat, try reading with earplugs in!

As it's summer and light in the evenings perhaps your partner could even put ds in the sling and go for a walk for an hour - just to give you a break. I know how awful it is having to listen to lots of crying - by the end of the day my ears would be buzzing and my nerves felt raw.

Hope the combination of colief, Dr Brown bottles & aptamil are making your life a little easier. I think Mears is quite right - it's important to stick with one milk rather than chopping and changing so stay with the aptamil now.

Hi Yoda, welcome to Mumsnet. Sorry to hear you're having a bad time at the moment. Sorry to contradict Anto, and I apologise if this confuses you more, but you say your ds is 8 weeks and weighs 13.2 lbs and has five to six feeds of 5-6 ozs - strikes me that he might well be hungry?? My ds is also 8 weeks and although has 5 oz bottles at some feeds, at the 7 am, 10.30 am and 6.30 pm he has bigger feeds usually around 7 oz. He weighs about 11.5 lbs. I know these are big feeds but ds seems to need it and he always drains every drop from each of his bottles.....maybe my ds is just a bit of a piggie I do worry a bit that he is having more than the recommended amount of formula for his age, but have learnt to chill out about this and accept that babies are all individuals with different needs. Certainly once I increased his bottles he seemed to be much more content.
Anyway, sorry if this contradicts other advice you've been given here. Does he always finish his bottles and look for more?
Hope things will improve for you, let us know how you are getting on.

Yoda, hi and welcome. Lots of good suggestions here - plus my two-penny-worth: 'tiger-in-the-tree', dummy, naps on tummy and fennel tea all worked well for me. The way I used fennel tea (this tip also came from Mumsnet!) was to leave a teabag in a sterlised bottle of boiling hot water overnight, then the following morning either give the baby a teaspoonful or two or use a little in making up the formula. Another idea is to help the downwards wind out by holding on to his ankles and bending his legs rhythmically during nappy changes (we call these exercises 'bicycling bunny'. Is the room in which your ds has his daytime naps (or would have them!) very dark? That may help him settle better.

Yoda - hi and welcome. Sorry you are having a tricky time. On from Melly's advice - I was never sure if my dd was hungry/getting too much, so used to offer a small bottle of boiled water. If she really sucked it I assumed she was hungry, or if she refused it vice-versa. Also in hot weather water if they de-hydrate then they get thumping headaches, which doesn't help with the screaming. HTH

Hi all,

Thanks very much for all the tips/advice, its nice to know that we are not alone !.

Anyway this weekend was the absolute worst with screaming nearly all day sunday. In desperation i took him along to see the hv on monday morning 'cos i couldn't envisage a day on my own with him......and it looks like it is hunger - i'm starving my own child She weighed him and he has put on 8oz but she reckons that making him wait 3hrs between feeds when he is sleeping 7-9hrs at night is too long. So i have started feeding him anytime now after 2hrs and touch wood he seems to be happier/content. Plus he freaked me out with a red mark that appeared on his finger, and this turns out to be a sucking mark !!!doh only the other day i commented to my dh that he was starting to find his mouth with his hand.....amazing how i didn't make the connection and came up instead with some horrendous disease

Thanks again for your help,

Helen