6 week old digestive issues

My first post on this forum

We have a beautiful baby boy that is 6 weeks.

He has been having so many issues with his digestion, constipation, reflux and as a result is so upset during the night and not gaining weight as quickly as the doctor or health visitors would like.

We have been prescribed movicol, and baby gaviscon, but so scared to be over medicating him....

I am also constipated but afraid to take anything in case it makes him sicker.

Has anyone else been through this? Looking for advice and some positive light at the end of the tunnel!

X

[Seb9]

It's really common for babies to struggle at first with digestion, their tummies have never had to deal with this before and it can time time to adjust. What is babies weight gain like? Are they just not gaining as much as the doctor would like or are they dropping percentiles?

If they're gaining and taking in plenty of feeds a day and you're getting lots of wet nappies, I would say to try and relax about it a bit. Not every child is going to gain according to charts and the charts aren't geared towards breastfed babies and they're known to grow slower because they're only taking what they need and not taking extra.

I found my health visitor was really unhelpful at reassuring me about my first babies weight gain and went from one week saying they weren't gaining enough and saying I had to go in for weekly weigh ins to the next week not even remembering us. I only got my second daughter weighed a handful of times, she was tiny 2 percentile baby and I still didn't get any value from getting her weighed.

Stress is the worst thing for breastfeeding too as its the live hormone you need plenty of, so please try not to worry too much, lots of soon to skin, and I found romantic comedies helped , anything that made me feel love moods.

If you're supplementing with formula or expressed milk make sure your pace feeding those so baby isn't taking in any extra gas, we did a bit of combi feeding with my second and used Kendamil which I like much better than the other formula, it smelt nicer and creamier.

I think if you follow the advice in regards medication , you won't be overmedicating baby, just hopefully assisting them in being more comfortable, sometimes they really don't do a lot though, and as baby's digestive system matures a lot of the issues go on their own.

You could try some natural laxatives for yourself like prunes or pears and make sure you're keeping hydrated. Even if you take medication only a minute amount would make it into your blood and an even tinier amount into your best milk. You can contact the breastfeeding network to find out more information about what medications you can take while breastfeeding. breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk...

It definitely does get better, I also found reading about Purple crying and the fourth trimester really helped me understand the newborn stage much better too , good luck with it all xxx

[Hidden in reply to Seb9]

Thanks so much for this response.

I am finding all the conflicting, vague advice really difficult to cope with from health visitors and doctors.

I am trying to stay as calm as possible, as long as he is slowly increasing along his percentile.....

It helps to know that I am not alone with this issue and pretty normal with newborns.

My daughter didn't seem to struggle so much with digestion, but her issue was more with her lungs development.

Thanks again.

X

[Positivechangeplease]

I’m so sorry you’re having problems. It’s so hard when they’re so young. Have you tried just eating a few prunes in the morning? That’s a nice natural day to get things moving and regular and won’t affect breast milk. Sorry for your baby their little tummies are so under developed. We used infacol for a long while. Hope it starts to work xx

[Hidden in reply to Positivechangeplease]

Ah thanks so much - got some prunes! I have some infacol so will also try that from time to time xxx

[Positivechangeplease in reply to Hidden]

If it’s bursts of crying and writhing and you don’t know why and seems like colic then that’s what our dd had. It was hard to work out if the infacol worked but in order to actually make it work it’s necessary to constantly use it because it can take a few weeks to work and I used it all the way to weaning. She’s still a bit of a burpy baby. But they do grow out of it. If it’s definitely constipation and you know it from nappies then infacol may make it worse… just to let you know xx

[Hidden in reply to Positivechangeplease]

Ok will keep this in mind. Thanks so much again xxx