Spitting up

Our twins are 20 days old today. Up until about Tuesday they were feeding fine. Don't get me wrong, they are still eating but they are spitting up now more than ever. Before this week all they would do is a little dribble... last night baby boy spit up and milk came out of his nose - which was a bit scary. I suspect this was because he was over-full but he insisted that he was hungry. We were told by many that babies know when they are full - and feeding him was the only thing that would calm him because he was crying off and on.

The pacifier would calm him down for about 5 minutes at a time, then he would spit it out and continue crying. I asked an experienced mother of four earlier today and she said that colic usually starts around three weeks, could this be it? We are feeding Similac Advance - Early Shield and both babies consume 60-110ml during each feeding. I understand that spitting up is normal but it just seems a bit much this week, I mean they've spit up more than usual but certainly not everything they consumed at the time. They usually spit up with a burp (wet burp) and sometimes while lying down. We have begun keeping them 'propped up' after each feeding to let gravity assist in keeping it down which I think has been working.

We have a Dr's appt coming up where I will express my concerns, I just thought I'd post and get some ideas. Baby boy has been a little more cranky than usual so perhaps it is colic. He is bigger than baby girl by almost two pounds. The twins are only 20 days old but honestly, it feels like two to three months because our days are so long. :woah:

Thanks all.

 

My DS did not develop his cow's milk intolerance until he was about a month old. And then, he had massive, violent vomit which came out of his nose and he screamed clearly in pain. We switched to a specialty formula and that took care of it. So, it definitely could be reflux/allergy/intolerance rearing its ugly head. I would talk to the pedi about it.

 

Forgive me for my ignorance but I didn't know you could feed cows milk at one month?!

 

Regular formula has cow milk in it. My son was like that too. He did spit up much. But when he was sleeping, suddenly he spitted up through his nose. He was so gassy and a bit reflux and colicky. He was cranky and cried a lot. It was the gas. He grew out of it after 3 months. All he was so gassy when he was on neosure. His pedi switched him to enfamil gentlease but he didn't like it. So again switched to similac alimentum and he was/is happy ever since. I don't know if the formula helped or he just grew out of it.he also has 70% breast milk...I definitely call doc office and talk to them if your twins spit up unhappily. They are too young to way for a week though, but its just me. Hope it helps!

Ohbtw,you have to burp the a lot I mean for a long time.

 

Oh no :ibiggrin: He drank Similac Advance, which is made from cow's milk.

 

Doh! As I said, forgive me for my ignorance. I didn't make the connection there for a second.

 

It could be reflux, and it could also be dairy intolerance, or both. In our case, it turned out to be both, and around 3-4 weeks is when we started seeing major problems. I would talk to the pedi about both possibilities. Our guys had the spitting up, but not excessively, but also very cranky, not sleeping more than 30-60 minutes at a time, lots of gas and stomach pain, etc. Dairy intolerance can manifest in two types of reactions - one the violent reaction a pp mentioned. The other is more subtle like what we have - gastrointestinal problems, problems sleeping, etc. Just because there is a more subtle problem, do not rule out dairy intolerance - we made that mistake for quite some time and really suffered. We went through a bunch of options and combinations before we finally found what worked for us, which was Prevacid for reflux and Nutramigen formula for the dairy problems. Not cheap, but SO worth it in the end! Good luck.

 

If you want to know if they are milk allergy, next time ask your pedi for some take home tests. You just have to wipe some of their poo on the tests and drop them off at doc office. they will call you or you can call them for the results. I think our pedi told us itd take 2 days or so.

 

My boys are what we called happy spitters. They just spit up. All.The.Time. Drove me CRAZY! There were two times...Nicholas was fed formula. Then he was put in the pack n play on his back. I HAPPENED to look up at him(this was middle of the night I believe) and he was throwing up all of the formula. I mean, it was just massive. It was crazy. And then there was another time he was fed, and he was sitting up in his carseat, swaddled. I looked over and it was like a faucet of formula coming out of his mouth. Nerve wracking to say the least.

I would definitely bring your concerns to the pedi next time you see them. And if it gets worse, don't hesitate to call. But also remember that although it looks like a ton of milk/spit up, it's almost mixed with stomach acids, etc and it's not as much as we really think it is. I was always surprised that my kids were gaining weight based on how much they were spitting up!