Help....Sicky baby

[ClareC]

Baby L is 4 weeks today, for the last couple of weeks he seems to bring up milk regularly. Not immediately after a feed as normal but pretty much anytime afterwards before the next feed. Generally it's a small amount and looks curdled, there have on occasions been a lot of non curdled milk reappeared, ie appearing to be most if not all of the feed. Fortunately this is not regular.

He seems to get upset and just want to feed..... Only settling when feeding again. He is demand feeding but I worry he is over feeding and this is the problem. He is also very windy and seems to get upset and have difficulty getting rid if it, again, wonder if this is the problem.

I don't think he has colic as he doesn't cry enough... Also he generally sleeps well at night.

Anyone else experienced this / have any ideas on how to deal with it? Is it normal? My daughter wasnt like this ......

He hates infacol btw.... Acts as though being poisoned!!!

[bluesuperted]

Hiya, I had this in a big way from 0-12 weeks. It totally freaked me out as he was baby number one. My Brierley midwives had to send round their most experienced midwife to tell me not to worry as he was gaining weight and really healthy. He used to vomit A LOT. 5 outfit changes a day plus! And lucky we bought a pale settee.... The midwife also reassured me after witnessing what I thought was a large full feed vomit 'that was nothing, barely half a feed!'

Anyway I too was worried he was taking too much, but the best advice I got from the NCT breastfeeding line, was to feed MORE frequently, little and often so he wasn't really ravenous when feeding and it wouldn't hit his tummy so hard. This worked brilliantly and while we got occasional sick ups after 12 weeks it was far, far reduced in regularity and volume! I imagine the same would hold true for bf or formula feeding at this stage.

Hope this helps! I had visions of never being able to leave the house and it was all unfounded in the end.

xx

[Fuschia]

This sounds like reflux

The acid brought up causes discomfort

Ask the gp got infant gaviscon

Google reflux/spilt milk

[bluesuperted]

We didn't get on with infacol or infant Gaviscon but I know some babies respond well to it. We ruled out reflux as it wasn't making him terribly unhappy - just vomit, then fine again. In fact I remember us faffing around with infant Gaviscon sachets and then him routinely chucking those up too! But probably worth exploring in case it is reflux.

[Yak]

Sounds eerily familiar. Yakling was windy and a bit colicy from 2 wks, but not particularly in the evenings and was still gaining weight really well and pooing and weeing freely. But he arched his back a lot, grunted and brought up quite a bit of milk or curdled milk. Following a couple of recommendations from forumites and others, I gave up milk based dairy products and within a day or so had noticed a real improvement. Having said that, this week seems to be worse - nor sure if its because I've reintroduced goat milk products, it because we are approaching the 6 week growth spurt & he's just guzzling. But it's still a whole lot better than it was.

For what it's worth, infacol didn't work for us. Dentinox helped a bit to encourage good burps. For me personally givng up dairy til about 12 wks felt like less of a faff than colief which requires giving the med mixed in with warm expressed milk before each feed.

Good luck with it, and sympathies to you both....

[Fuschia]

Giving up cows milk while bf will ensure no cows milk protein ends up in the milk

There are some babies who are allergic, but they tend to grow out of it

Lactose intolerance is rare in babies - colief contains the enzyme which digests lactose

But this sounds more like reflux- a weakness in the blabs which slows thd contents to spill out

[ClareC]

Thanks for all the advice, good to hear it is quite common.

Will try out the suggestions and let you all know how it goes :-)

[Yak]

How is it going ClareC?

[ClareC]

He is still sicky but has definitely improved. Not sure if it's the changes I've made or that he is better at dealing with it.... He sounds like he will be sick but then seems to swallow it again! We have the 6 week check next week so Will chat to the Dr about reflux and baby gaviscom too.

He def is gaining weight (rapidly) so I'm not concerned, just not pleasant for him (or me). My mum said I was a sicky baby right up until a year old?!?!?!?! Let's hope its not the same!

How soon did you find eliminating milk made a difference?

[Yak]

Poor thing. Perhaps its silent reflux - where the acidic stomach juices come up but are then reswallowed again? Definitely worth checking out with the dr.

I noticed a difference within a couple of days of cutting out dairy - it's not totally eliminated the wind / sick but it did seem to help a lot. Also as a silly first time mummy I've only just realised the symptoms got worse when I started putting him in washable nappies a couple of weeks ago. I think in my eagerness to avoid leaks I was doing them up too tight which was constructing his tummy! Oops....

In the meantime, perhaps bibs are the way forward - hopefully for less than a year tho !?!