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Baby crying during & after feeding

Our little one is 4 weeks old and always had formula milk. Every time he feeds, he will drink a little bit of milk (around 30ml) then cry uncontrollably for a good 20-30 mins, before having more milk and crying again for 20-30 mins or longer, sometimes multiple times over to finish the bottle. I try to burp him during and after feeding, sometimes he lets out some big burps but sometimes there’s nothing. Sometimes he cries so much it sounds like he is in pain, arches his back and throws his head back, which can make it really difficult to burp him as it can be difficult to hold him upright or on my shoulder as he thrashes around so much. He also gets hiccups a lot after feeding.

Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? It’s so upsetting and breaks my heart to see him crying like that, sometimes I feel so useless at consoling him as nothing I do seems to work.

Thank you xxx

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rmarsh33

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9 Replies

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Gosh could be anything!! Sorry your having a tough time. Have you spoken to midwife? Does he bring much back up? Could you swap out a different teet that's slower flow, or try a quiet darker room to feed in case it's overwhelming..

But honestly sounds like latching issues

have you checked for tongue tie, maybe ask the midwife or health visitors to observe you feeding, he might have latch problems even on a bottle... Try your finger see what the suck is like and can you look under his tongue , are his cheeks getting full like a hamster or is there quite a bit of a gap around the teet and his mouth ? My little ones tongue tie was missed which cause feeding grief for ages!!

Sounds like reflux. Have you made sure you're keeping him upright as much as possible after feeds? Really make sure you wind him properly throughout. If not settling could try change to reflux milk, and getting in touch with gp if not settling as might look at something like gavsicon.

Hi babies tend to be able to over feed themselves very quickly when they bottle feed, getting out breast milk is a lot harder so they can't go out down so fast so it might be baby is taking on too much too quickly and feeling uncomfortable.

If you haven't already tried it maybe try pace feeding the bottle, you sit them upright slightly more and baby has now control over the speed on the milk.

There's more information on it on this website kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms....

At four weeks old it would also be possible to get some help with relaxation if you wanted to try breastfeeding baby to see if this would help with his pain issues feeding. La leche league has information about that and advisors can work with you to try it. If it doesn't work you've always got bottle feeding to fall back on.

Also try to remember baby is still in their fourth trimester so they do tend to cry a lot, maybe have read up on the fourth trimester and purple crying as this helped me make sense of my babies crying when she was little. Good luck x

I could have written this myself! Our baby is also 4 weeks old and has had similar symptoms.

Our health visitor suggested it could be colic when I spoke to her at week 2 and to potentially try a comfort milk.

My husband is convinced it is trapped wind and me not winding him properly as I am a bit nervous about it. Either way baby has started to fart a lot recently and I think that is getting the wind out, and I have a better winding technique and he seems a lot better the last few days.

However I do find if he is sleeping and has a long time between feeds, he wakes up starving and chugs the milk down, and then gets really windy and in pain, so I try not to let him go over 3 and a half hours between feeds in the day if I can, which seems to have helped.

I’d say give your health visitor a call for some advice too xx

Sounds like reflux and or wind (most newborns get colicky and have wind that will settle at around 9/10 weeks. Try a anti colic formula and or an anti reflux formula. Our bub is 12 weeks old...his pain settled at around 9 weeks and after we changed his formula to the ones mentioned above.

We use Aptamil anti colic and anti constipation and I also add their thickener (which you buy separately) for our bubs reflux too. It’s de a huge difference.

Your baby could also be intolerant to dairy as well? Keep this in mind.

All the best, I feel for you xx

Is it the same with every bottle or certain times? My little girl of 8 weeks does the same thing, normally last feed! I tend to see if she manages to get it to pass and if not I add gripe to the formula and with in 30mins it tends to settle! It sounds like wind and when they drink it causes the tummy to cramp as it pushes through! For instance sometimes these bouts end with her doing the toilet and then she’s good for another day! Xxx

You could try feeding them with a bowl and spoon same ratio but it could help you figure out if it’s a problem with the bottle or because of the milk. You can look it up but you bring the spoon to the mouth not into it so they have a bit more control.

This could be one of a few things, tongue tie as mentioned above, reflux (Can be silent) causing pain (in which case I’d try an anti reflux milk and see if things improve) but what no one has mentioned is a milk allergy. Our little one had one and as she got less and less pumped breast milk and more and more formula things got worse and she started snack feeding 1-2oz a feed like yours with the odd bigger one, wouldn’t sleep flat at night and was just generally a miserable newborn. Look up CMPA symptoms and see if they fit. If they do then you’ll need to see a GP to get some extensively hydrolised formula on prescription (it’s what they start with), there are a few you might get given, if things don’t work there are others and then some that are completely milk free. I’d trust your instincts, I got told by the midwife it was ‘colic’ even though at 5 days I said to my dad something wasn’t right, took us 7 weeks to go and get help and in hindsight I wish I’d asked sooner as life was awful. Colic is just a term for they have no idea what’s going on and yes some babies cry more than others but some do have things wrong with them and you get fobbed off! Anyway rant over, I hope this helps a little x

Thankgod you mentioned an allergy as my thoughts were going that way reading the post. My little one was a miserable baby and took months for them to find out he had cmpa. If may not be that but it's worth investigating if symptoms continue x