reflux? milk intolerance? colic?

I am at wits end not knowing what to do anymore.
My 9 week old girl has never been happy or not for long anyway.
Got home from hospital and she would historically scream from 8pm until 6am when she would finally fall asleep on me. Only time she was happy was while on the boob. Tried infacol helped a little but didn't last long. In the end i got post natal and mastitis (sp?) so changed to formula. Started on S26 and she became a totally different baby, no screaming and started sleeping for 4-5hrs. So i thought maybe she wasn't getting enough milk and thats why she's happy now.
Then it started again (not as bad) but screaming every evening 6pm to 11pm. unable to settle at all. and every time she pooed it would be an hour of screaming and clawing at me. we thought she was constipated and changed to Nan ha gold formula. Seemed to improve a little, but then started to throw up after feeds, and wriggle,cry and arch her back while trying to burp her. She was a little bit more settled in evenings but in saying that could still have an evening of extreme screaming for hours and then when she would fart the screaming will go up a notch. We've tried everything - infants friend, colic relief, infacol nothing worked. Anyway doctor prescribed losec because she thinks she has reflux, first started on suspension but heard this doesn't work well and struggled to get her to take the 2.5ml without spitting it out or chocking on it so now i dissolve the tablets and give with half a teaspoon of peach puree. Been on tablets for nearly a week and seems like she is worse. i just don't know what to do anymore! i read these forums a 100 times a day for answers but it just makes me more confused. Is it reflux?? was it just colic?? is it a milk intolerance. sorry so long but just so confused!!!

DS2 was like that at the start too. Turned out my milk had dried up and he was starving! Got him on formula, same thing, instant happier baby. I was warned against all the 'gold' formula's due to the higher iron content, which can upset little tummies. I also haven't stepped up to any 'stage 2' formula's as it caused the same upset (solid poo's, wind, screaming etc etc), so DS2 is 19 months old and still has newborn formula (as recommended to me by the chemists and GP's).
It took a few weeks for his tummy to settle into his new foods though.

I found the little trick of laying him on his left side and giving his lower back a gentle rub (and usually bopping around the room too lol) got the air out of him one way or another.

It's probably the peach itself upsetting her tummy in that case. Peach upsets my tummy! To a tiny baby it's probably like us drinking a bottle of prune juice lol.

My advice (for what it's worth) would be to can everything and start again from scratch. Go back to a basic (not gold) formula, give it time for her tummy to settle into it.

Do you have a carrier thingo? I carried DS2 around a bit, he seemed happier upright, and I could still get stuff done. He also loved his bouncer. I'd put him in that for his day sleep a lot and he'd bounce himself off to sleep (and the little vibrate pack thing on it helped everything get some movement I think!).

Good luck. And don't forget to keep coming back here for advice and a good ol' vent smile

could be colicy? Infacol doesnt do a whole lot or didnt for my ds,I use it for hiccups bahahaha.Maybe reflux if your baby is struggling with feeding,I use baby gaviscon and it works miracles and also ranitidene.I know its hard but try to space feeds for at least two hours,was told if they have reflux there tummy need to have time to empty or they can constantly be uncomfortable.Another tip dummies Im not a fan of them at all but finally gave in when ds was 2 and a half months.and it has been so much easier

your not alone

Hi, my baby is 10 weeks old and im going through the exact same thing, let me know if u find anything that works. they now think he might be allergic to dairy, so i have to switch from his current formula which is ar karicare to an h & a formula, i wish now i hadn't given up breastfeeding but i became quite stressed and semi dried up with all the running around al day everyday, plus have a 10 yr old to sort for school etc. I'm just lucky he slps al night from 7.30 to 6am which i think is really bad for a newborn, hes still gaining weight but not as well. Im waiting on a referral to mothercraft which hopefully they can help settle him into sleeping patterns as much as possible its driving me crazy not knowing what to do, on bad days he goes in the pushchair and we walk til his nxt feed, because i have put him in a 4 hourly routine as he screams and has tummy pain worse if i feed him weneva he wants, all the best smile

YES!!! Dummies lol. I was not a believer at all, but after DS2 I almost worship them hahahaha. Actually, DS1 was a horrid sleeper and I wished he'd taken to a dummy in the end, he didn't like them at all by the time I realised they weren't a bad thing.

I think they can be a really useful tool dummies,specially when your babys to stubborn to shut there eyes lol.Then theres the matter of weaning them off lol

I am at wits end not knowing what to do anymore.
My 9 week old girl has never been happy or not for long anyway.
Got home from hospital and she would historically scream from 8pm until 6am when she would finally fall asleep on me. Only time she was happy was while on the boob. Tried infacol helped a little but didn't last long. In the end i got post natal and mastitis (sp?) so changed to formula. Started on S26 and she became a totally different baby, no screaming and started sleeping for 4-5hrs. So i thought maybe she wasn't getting enough milk and thats why she's happy now.
Then it started again (not as bad) but screaming every evening 6pm to 11pm. unable to settle at all. and every time she pooed it would be an hour of screaming and clawing at me. we thought she was constipated and changed to Nan ha gold formula. Seemed to improve a little, but then started to throw up after feeds, and wriggle,cry and arch her back while trying to burp her. She was a little bit more settled in evenings but in saying that could still have an evening of extreme screaming for hours and then when she would fart the screaming will go up a notch. We've tried everything - infants friend, colic relief, infacol nothing worked. Anyway doctor prescribed losec because she thinks she has reflux, first started on suspension but heard this doesn't work well and struggled to get her to take the 2.5ml without spitting it out or chocking on it so now i dissolve the tablets and give with half a teaspoon of peach puree. Been on tablets for nearly a week and seems like she is worse. i just don't know what to do anymore! i read these forums a 100 times a day for answers but it just makes me more confused. Is it reflux?? was it just colic?? is it a milk intolerance. sorry so long but just so confused!!!

I am at wits end not knowing what to do anymore.
My 9 week old girl has never been happy or not for long anyway.
Got home from hospital and she would historically scream from 8pm until 6am when she would finally fall asleep on me. Only time she was happy was while on the boob. Tried infacol helped a little but didn't last long. In the end i got post natal and mastitis (sp?) so changed to formula. Started on S26 and she became a totally different baby, no screaming and started sleeping for 4-5hrs. So i thought maybe she wasn't getting enough milk and thats why she's happy now.
Then it started again (not as bad) but screaming every evening 6pm to 11pm. unable to settle at all. and every time she pooed it would be an hour of screaming and clawing at me. we thought she was constipated and changed to Nan ha gold formula. Seemed to improve a little, but then started to throw up after feeds, and wriggle,cry and arch her back while trying to burp her. She was a little bit more settled in evenings but in saying that could still have an evening of extreme screaming for hours and then when she would fart the screaming will go up a notch. We've tried everything - infants friend, colic relief, infacol nothing worked. Anyway doctor prescribed losec because she thinks she has reflux, first started on suspension but heard this doesn't work well and struggled to get her to take the 2.5ml without spitting it out or chocking on it so now i dissolve the tablets and give with half a teaspoon of peach puree. Been on tablets for nearly a week and seems like she is worse. i just don't know what to do anymore! i read these forums a 100 times a day for answers but it just makes me more confused. Is it reflux?? was it just colic?? is it a milk intolerance. sorry so long but just so confused!!!

From day 3, our little girl would scream endlessly, bring her knees to her tummy, arch her back, be unsettled and what started as small spilling, became moderate vomiting to projectile vomiting. We initially started with infacol, then baby gaviscon, then losec....
Countless trips to the doctor and hospital in the middle of the night as a result of her choking and we were sent away with yet another prescription for paracetamol and told "you're being an over anxious first time mother - it's something she'll grow out of".....!! Our girl still had wet and dirty nappies, despite hardly keeping any milk down.....
We had our girl tested for allergies and different food intolerances, but all came back negative. We tried S26 and a thickened formula (by this stage, breast feeding had gone out the window as I wasn't producing enough milk) but our girl was getting worse and loosing weight.
One day, covered in vomit and at my wits end, I went to the hospital and demanded to see the senior paedeatrician. Our girl was very dehydrated and her liver and kidneys were starting to shut down. Once she had a drip put in and was hydrated, I demanded a scan be done. Within two minutes of the scan, it was confirmed she had pyloric stenosis. Something that is unbelievably common, yet overlooked by GP's and the like daily. We were told it was more common in boys of about 6 weeks of age. Yet, here was our less than 3 week old baby girl, very very sick. She was transferred within an hour of the scan to a different hospital and had a simple (yet very scary for mum and dad) operation. Once she had recovered from the general, she was a different baby. She was settled, she slept and kept her food down. It was heartbreaking thinking of all the unnecessary medicines I had been forcing into her in the hope that she would get well. This may or may not be something your baby has, but ask for a scan. At the very least, it'll be something you can rule out. We were also told by the paedeatrician that there's no such thing as colic!!?? Prior to discovering what our girl had and because the GP said she had reflux, we also had an appointment for our girl to have the level of acid tested to determine the level/seriousness of her refulx. We were told it's quite an invasive procedure and we are sure glad we had the scan done before going down this path. Some things for you to think about/consider anyway. Good luck!!

Hi,

I had to reply as I have been in your situation and I know how hard it is. My little boy cried from day 1 till he was 8 weeks old. Never sleeped!!!! He was diagnosed with silent reflux at 5 days old and was started on baby gaviscon. This did not help at all though and we were back and forward to the doctor every few days. Unfortunaly because he was a big boy born and gaining weight it was hard to get the doctor to take is seriously. We tried chiropractors and numerous types of reflux medicine and then finally i got so fed up that after talking with midwife I cut gluten and dairy out of my diet (he was exclusively breastfed). Within 2 days he was a different baby. The change was so instant I could not believe. Finding out if they have an intolerance to something is really hard as it requires a process of elimination. Check to see if your formula contains gluten as this seems to be the biggest factor for my son. He started eating gluten when he started solids but his stomach is severely distended and he bloats very easily. He also suffers from constant constipation or diareah so we ate heading back to the doctors this week to ask for allergy testing. My son is now 13 months old. I really hope you can sort out what is wrong soon. Good luck smile

Thanks for all your replies! I already use a dummy and yes it's a life saver...she loves her dummy. Ive decided to can everything...i hate giving her all this stuff when she is so young, but have just been on a search for the miracle product that will solve all our issues which i know is wishful thinking. She seemed much better today don't know if it is because I've stopped the losec...or is it because the losec is finally working??? Its funny how your always second guessing everything. I tried the infant gaviscon for 2 days but it seemed to make things worse...on the 2nd night she screamed historically for hours...so we stopped that. I don't know if I'm just not giving all these things enough of a go..but when they seem to make her worse it makes me feel so bad.
She generally does feed every 4 hours...though in the evening when she is historical we might give her an extra feed as it is the only thing that gives us some silence for a while.
Thanks for your story hunnybunny will look into those things. My mum keeps telling me i was the same and at 12 weeks i just stopped crying. so hopefully bubs is the same...3 weeks to go!!!
I do want to try a formula that is for milk intolerance just to see if this helps...but my husband worries every time we change formula or i try something that she may end up worse!!! Because at least now when it gets to 11pm she will go down and sleep till 3am and then after that feed she goes down again till 7am. The only thing that makes me think it isn't milk intolerance is that she doesn't have diarrhoea?? But who knows!