Difficult feeds....Colic?

[Joshuasmum]

Our DS is 11 weeks and a healthy eater. Couldn't keep up with him on the breast (also had a tendency to thrash around and struggle to latch on) and so now combine a little bit of breast feeding with mainly bottle.
Although feeding patterns are more regular now, he still takes in most of his food between 5pm and 9pm often accompanied by lots of crying because he struggles with wind. Feeding is quite exhausting becuase he is constantly thrashing around and howling and it takes forever to get the right quantity of food into him.
Having said that, he then sleeps through the night!
What can we do to encourage him to take more food earlier in the day?
Tried infacol and gripe water for the wind and am thinking about fennel tea or chamomile tea to try and help having looked at some other discussion chains...any advice?

[Sandi102]

i used both fennel tea and infacol..i think its helping, cuz he brings up wind..both ends..although over the last day or two he started to get distressed half way through a feed..he's still bringing up wind..so not sure what the prob could b..

[Aero]

Sounds just like my ds2 - now six months. What helped him was cranial osteopathy. I was a total skeptic, but it really did work and I still bf him. His colic/wind problems lasted well beyond 12 wks and I was almoost at the end of my tether and CO was suggested to me. Was expensive, but IMO well worth paying for.

[Joshuasmum]

Thanks for the input - had a long day feeding today....
Sometimes I think the problem is with the amount of food he needs and that with all the feeding he takes in lots of air. (He is 7 kgs - about 15 lbs and takes in over 1000mls of milk a day!)
Anyone had any experience starting a bit of baby rice before 4 months..?

I'm hoping this doesn't last much longer otherwise I will be trying CO!

[mummytojames]

i think eleven weeks is a bit to young we started ours at fifteen weeks to help with the wind while bottle feeding is to give him 2oz wind him for five minuites then another 2oz and so on and so on there is also a bottle of stuff you put in the milk to break down the lactose there was also a way to use it for breast but cant remember the name it was around ten pound for a small bottle from boots
hth

[Aero]

Waited until four months b4 starting baby rice, but even a tiny amount (1 tsp) made matters a lot worse for ds (and subsequently me). He just had such bad wind pains that we had to stop. Tried again a few weeks later with the same result. Left it until just last week (24wks old) and it seems he just needed for his tummy to be ready for food. We've had no problems this time and it was really obvious when he needed to start on something more substantial than milk. He started wanting to feed every three hours or so, even through the night!
Having said that, both ds1 and dd both started weaning at four months with no problems, but every baby is different. It might be worth trying, and you'll know for sure if it's causing any discomfort or making things worse in the wind dept. HTH

[Joshuasmum]

I think that £10 stuff is Colief - it will be next on my list of things to try!

Thanks for the input on the baby rice - I really don't want to go there unless it is necessary esp since he seems so unsettled on the feeding at the moment. His feeding habits do seem to be changing...definitely taking in more food and after sleeping through the night for about 10 days woke up during the night last night. (Why don't they have a tired emoticon!).

He is sleeping at the moment...

[ellenb]

Hello, my dd is 20 weeks and over the past couple of weeks has shown symptoms of colic (had it with ds 2 years ago) - i've never heard of it starting at his age but health visitor says it can happen. she too is very hungry and on 2 feeds bottle and the rest breast. would be interested to find out if you had success with the stuff from boots as have tried all the usual methods.