Can formula cause windiness?

[Moos]

Tapping the expertise of the Family Room!

Twosling (10 weeks) has started having a regular bottle of formula each evening as a top-up to his feed. He sometimes doesn't want any, but generally takes 1-3oz of the 4oz he's offered. He's also had a couple of bouts of windiness and green, 'upset tummy' poos in the same period, the last 2-3 weeks.

Might be co-incidence, and HV didn't think there was any connection, but wondered if anyone had heard of formula, or particular brands, causing wind?

Many thanks!

Moos

[Medusa]

Definitely possible. One of mine was lactose-intolerant and this went unnoticed while I was breastfeeding but when I introduced formula he had gastro-intestinal symptoms the way you describe.

[charlottep]

yes, i have experienced exactly this with both of mine when i introduced top up formula, they were a bit better on aptamil. It took a couple of weeks for their digestive systems to adjust and then they were as happy with formula as with breastfeeding.

[Ko]

yes they do get very windy as their system has to adjust. i didn't find much difference between brands. i used hipp organic and then aptamil.

[Moos]

Many thanks - we are already using Aptamil but perhaps I'll try Hipp if there's no improvement.

[Saffron]

You can also try goat's milk formula.

[pebbles]

I found it wasn't formula but bottles???? I used to express quite a bit with no.1 and gulping down the bottle definitely made him windy compared to "gentle" sucking of the boob!!! Maybe getting too much air in the teat???

[ladywotlunches]

Yes - bottle feeding does cause more wind I think, just the suckling action. My MIL always says this to me (ie that mine won't be as windy as I'm BFing which she and my SIL didn't do hence the constant comparisons!) I find passing the baby to DH for winding useful especially if there's a bit of possetting ;)

[Moos]

Sorry, I was unclear - not burpy windiness, but discomfort in his gut (I asssume) with lots of wriggling and crying eventually relieved by farting and/or the green poo.

[ladywotlunches]

Gripe water. A friend gave me a bottle when we had a bit of colicy pain (which may well have been due to introducing formula) and it worked a treat to get the wind up. Tastes bloody awful tho!

[Saffron]

I could be wrong but does green poo not perhaps suggest a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance when nursing?

[buggie]

I started giving bugglet formula at night initially when she was 6wks old and had similar experience (was also using aptamil). Went back to giving EBM, but about 3wks later swapped back to aptimil (expressing was getting more difficult) and found she was much better and settled. Thought it might have been age related rather than an I tolerance. Best of luck Moos x

[Moos]

Thanks again ladies. We appear to be settling down a little, last night he didn't wake every hour (yippee) and is no longer distressed by wind. Saffron, agree green poo often means too much foremilk but it can also be caused by diarrhoea.

Rather oddly, he woke at 11.30 last night after almost 4 hours between feeds (which is very long for him) and though clearly ravenous and frantically attacking the bottle only managed to get half of it down in 20 minutes. Tried a couple of teats but eventually gave up, and breastfed him instead, which he was happy with. Maybe Avent no.2 teats too 'newborn' for him by now, and might try another brand.

[Belle]

Moos - I fo und I had to increase teat size much more quickly than the Avent guidelines advised, from memory - basically, whenever we had problems/reluctance feeding I'd go up a teat size, so we got to 4 fairly quickly.