gulping milk down as if trying to breathe whilst feeding, major crying...

Ashley started doing this a few days ago, every third or fourth feed, she drinks very erratically, right from when we put the bottle in her mouth, she'll start squirming and struggling against the bottle, yet sucking really hard. Then she starts to cry and we spend time trying to burp her (seems to be more burps than usual) and then she seems hungry so we try again and so she starts squirming and struggling again... It's very distresssing.

I felt it was food and gas related and kept trying to burp Ashley and although she is burping more, it doesn't seem to stop the crying

We phoned the pedi and he said maybe she has a sore ear or has started teething (at two months?!?!?)

Anyone else experienced this behaviour?

ps We do the 5 S's (as suggested in Happiest Baby on the Block) and swaddle her etc. but still no calming Ashley down. Thanks in advance.

 

Ashley started doing this a few days ago, every third or fourth feed, she drinks very erratically, right from when we put the bottle in her mouth, she'll start squirming and struggling against the bottle, yet sucking really hard. Then she starts to cry and we spend time trying to burp her (seems to be more burps than usual) and then she seems hungry so we try again and so she starts squirming and struggling again... It's very distresssing.

I felt it was food and gas related and kept trying to burp Ashley and although she is burping more, it doesn't seem to stop the crying

We phoned the pedi and he said maybe she has a sore ear or has started teething (at two months?!?!?)

Anyone else experienced this behaviour?

ps We do the 5 S's (as suggested in Happiest Baby on the Block) and swaddle her etc. but still no calming Ashley down. Thanks in advance.

 

she's also doing exactly the same thing when I breastfeed her....

 

I could be way off, but Emily does this sometimes and we figured out that some of her level 1 nipples had a tear in them and she was getting too much too fast. Like I said it could be way off, and she might just have an ear infection or something, those can cause some pain while eating. Make sure she is sitting upright while eating. I wish I could be of more help! Good luck!

 

i could have written your post with Noah. He does the exact same thing..we find that he does have reflux and we are trying to figure out if it's the reflux causing this or gas possibly from the neosure..we are going to the pedi tomorrow and will talk to him more anout this.. also planning on taking them off the neosure to see if that helps. sorry i can't offer any suggestions but we are also trying to figure it out..maybe between the 2 of us we will

 

My Gracyn does almost the same exact thing at some feedings. She just starts sucking away and gets to about 2 1/2 to 3 oz (she takes a 6 oz bottle) and just starts fighting us. Arching her back and crying. She pushes the bottle away and doesn't want anymore but then acts as if she is still hungry so we try again but the same thing happens. I would like to see what everyone else has to say about this. Thanks.

Courtney

 

Ours did that too -- for us it turned out to be a combo of reflux and difficulty dealing with the volume of flow (what my LC called "cognative disorganization" ) . At the recommendation of our LC, we switched to Platex Naturalatch nipples, and held the bottle so that there was 1/2 milk and 1/2 air visible in the nipple (I know, it seems weird given all of the concern about gas, but it helped a lot and didn't create any noticable increase in gassiness). When breastfeeding, you can try positions that help them control the flow better (leaning back in a chair, or shifting them towards their feet -- if that makes sense -- once they have latched on, so that their head is titled back more).

Kim

 

I have that going on with Ira too. He takes some feedings great, and others he cries and writhes around and arches and such. He is hungry, but pushes the bottle away. He is on Nutramigen as we thought it was a milk allergy, but... it is still going on. Both boys were diagnosed with reflux and they are on prilosec and for awhile all was well, but Ira is back to where we were before. It seems like the worst feedings are in the evening. Our pedi did a series of tests on him and cannot find anything wrong. We are going to go into a pediatric G.I. doc to see if they have any suggestions. Sigh. All anyone can say right now is it is bad colic and we have to wait for him to grow and develop his digestive tract more (they were 33 week preemies so his adjusted age is only 8 weeks).

Not much help here, however I am going to try a heating pad on his belly next time and see if that helps if he is having intestinal or stomach cramping. I will let you know if it does any good.

 

Our problem was also a combo of too much flow and reflux. It still happens on occassion after I got new nipples for the bottles. It also occassionally happens when BF, so I know it does have a lot to do with the reflux.

 

arounds 8 weeks our boys were diagnosed with reflux. THey arched their backs and screamed yet trying to drink at the same time because they were hungry. It was not at every bottle though. I remember thinking please dont scream during this bottle. After the diagnoses and prevacid and nutramigen formula, their symptoms were forever gone!!! I would ask your Dr. about this. THey may have outgrown it by now but I am so afraid to stop the meds or switch to a cheaper formula. I never want them to expereince that again

 

Ava is doing the same thing. I think it's a reflux/ too high flow issue here too. We are on Neosure and hope to be switching SOON. I'm thinking a little bit of colic too as this only seems to happen in the evening. Funny, almost everyone who responded to this post with the same problem is right around the 2 month mark. Maybe by 3 months they'll be grown out of it????

Crystal

 

Sounds like reflux to me. DD did the same thing. Arched her back and screamed after only 2 ozs. She did better on Alimentum and Nutrimigen but after a few weeks she got over it. I think with my daughter it was also a combination of constipation. She is now taking laxatives every day and on a regular formula and drinking up to 6 to 8ozs each bottle.

 

Ronan did the exact same thing for about a month when he was around that age--it only resolved somewhat in the last few weeks. I suspect gas and reflux, like pps have said. For nursing, I found that nursing him upright in the sling (while walking around) was the only thing that worked at all for us. NYCmom had suggested to me when I posted about the same thing that nursing while walking around would help with the flow issues, and she was TOTALLY right (belated THANKS to NYCmom )! So, the combo of the sling and walking did it for us... Totally frustrating though, I know! Hope things start going better--keep us updated!

 

One thing I forgot - we have one of those yoga exercise balls as both boys are calmed down by bouncing (more than rocking) and *sometimes* very gentle bouncing while feeding helps Ira. Sometimes. I don't have any idea why. Is it partly psychological as he associates the bouncing with calming down?

Interesting that the bouncing is similar to the walking that EmmaKay mentions.

My Pedi did say that reflux gets worse and worse until around 4 months when it levels off. Here's to hoping that this is a stage we will all be saying goodbye to as soon as possible.

 

EmmaKay -- so glad that helped you. I forgot about the walking around (I think I'm trying to block out those memories. The walking was so frustrating!) What's funny is that even though we are dedicated slingers, it never occurred to me to use the sling when I needed to walk with them -- I just carried the little buggers! The sling makes so much more sense.

Kim

 

Thanks everyone! we feel not so alone with this thanks to all your comments

quote:
My Pedi did say that reflux gets worse and worse until around 4 months when it levels off. Here's to hoping that this is a stage we will all be saying goodbye to as soon as possible.


our pedi claims reflux only happens around 4 months and that involves vomiting.

Interesting that it's around two months that this is happening. On the other hand Chloe is not doing this at all......

We think it's possible she has a cold, as all the adults around here have runny noses and she's sneezing more than usual. Pedi advised us to give her 1 ml Paracetemol which we did last night and also this morning before her first feed. She was calm during this feed and the middle of night feed.

it's just so distressing to see one of your babies obviously so uncomfortable....

 

I am not a Dr by any means but I have learned a lot about reflux in these past 5 months. I would love to know what your Dr. means by reflux only happening around 4 months. I am pretty sure that is very untrue. Why then would GI specialists diagnose relux by doing scopes earlier thatn 4 months??

Also, vomitting DOES NOT have to be a refux symptom. My boys never vomitted and an ENT confirmed one of my sons reflux when doing a scope for something else.

If her symptoms remain the same, I would have her looked at.

 

thanks Seamusnicholas mum, i'm not too familiar with reflux (what it involves etc.) so real mum advice is much appreciated.

 

OK.. here's what our pedi said:
He believes it's the reflux that is causing the crying, pushing the bottle away etc...He changed their meds to prilosec and suggested we add 2 tsp of rice cereal to 2-4 oz of formula. He did not suggest changing the formula..I told him I wanted to change the formula since it is so expensive (neosure) and hard to find. He was ok with that but really wanted them to stay on the neosure until at least 6months!!
So what I think we are going to do is try adding the cereal to what we have left in neosure to see what that does, if that does not work we will try to change formula and if that doesn't work we will try the prilosec. I think if we change everything at once we will have no idea what helped. He also said it will most likely get worse and peaks out about 4-5 months!! Great!!

 

LB, does Noah do it every feed or just some feeds? Ashley calmly drank her milk since then but just now she's doing the pushing away thing. I'm going to ask my pedi about it again. I vaguely remember reading here a couple of months ago that pedis dont like to diagnose reflux....

 

Ours didn't do it every feed. My LC said that all babies with difficulty feeding (reflux or other problems) will often do better at feeds when they go with their instincts -- that usually happens when they are sleepy , so night feeds and other drowsy feeds generally went much better around here. Of course, now we are fighting with the fact that they got used to doing a lot of eating at night ...

Kim

 

He did not do it at every feed. His symptoms were what was described in the original post but then he also would have these episodes where he would start screaming and formula would be bubbling up out of his mouth and nose..he sounds like he's drowning on formula.It's awful. So last night I started adding cereal to his bottle and so far so good but I don't want to jinx anything..we will see how the day goes.

 

I booked an appointment to see the pedi with Ashley, the earliest appointment I could get was Monday 15th Jan. Meanwhile I'm using a swing and the Five S's to calm her....

 

LB - are you still adding cereal?

 

My daughter did that because she does not have the suck, breathe, swallow thing all figured out. Plus, she has reflux. We add 1 tablespoon of cereal for every two ounces of milk. Mine does it with the bottle and with nursing. Sometimes I have to add even more cereal and change nipples on the bottles because she is lazier to swallow or may be more tired and not want to breathe, swallow, suck very well. I would ask your pediatrician about that and reflux.

 

just an update. Ashley got worse yesterday with incessant crying and her intake of food had been dwindling in the previous 3 days, we took her to a family doctor in the same group of doctors as her pediatrician was away. Interestingly she diagnosed reflux and gave us a prescription for Zantac and to slowly change her formula to Enfamil AR. As soon as she had her Zantac last night, she guzzled down 4 oz without a murmur, she seemed like a whole different baby. Wait till I see/tell her pediatrician!

 

I'm glad you found answers!

 

We switched over to prilosec (from prevacid..was having difficulty getting it into them). It seems to be helping as I don't see the screaming during bottles. Noah will occasinally cry during and appear to be pushing. We are using oatmeal cereal. I am adding 9tsp to 6 oz of formula for one and 7 tsp for 5 oz of formula for the other. I am using the playtex bottles with level 2 nipple and they are not choking/gagging like they were when the formula was thinnner. Noah still had an episode of gurgling with formula coming out of the nose recently but the screaming/crying during bottles seems to have decreased.

 

LB, is Noah doing better on prilosec? The Zantac that Ashley was prescribed seems to have stopped being so effective and she's started the screaming feeds again.... so distressing....

 

The only thing that worked for us until the Zantac started working was bouncing while feeding. Sounds crazy, but when they would not eat without screaming any other way I walked, bounced a LOT and fed them (breast or bottle).
I'm glad someone else mentioned this, I used to wonder if I imagined it!