I've given up dairy & my baby is even more gassy than ever! Help!

[chlobo]

Hi,

On the advice of my doctor I gave up dairy almost 2 weeks ago. Since then, my little Isabella has been even gassier. In fact, she is so uncomfortable that she scrunches up almost *all* the time (at night she crunches up and grunts about every five minutes).

Are there any other common allergens that I might unwittingly be eating? Anyone else experience this problem and just outgrow it?

[lrg]

I had the exact same thing happen to me with my little guy when he was about a month old. I gave up dairy (which was VERY hard since I'm a vegetarian and that was one of my main sources of protein) I was also eating little to no beans or anything else suspect and nothing was making him less uncomfortable. He was grunting a lot during the day and it was causing him to wake up early from naps. At night he would sleep decently, but he'd squirm and grunt in his sleep.

He got past all of this by the time he was around 9 weeks old, so it didn't last all that long. Back then it felt like forever, though. I did get some advice from a friend to try something called Gripewater. My Dr. said this was meant for babies with colic, but it wouldn't hurt him to try it. The friend said her baby had horrible stomach pain issues and swore by this stuff. Fortunately, my guy's problems went away before I ever had a chance to try it.

You don't need a prescription, but only specialty type pharmacies carry it.

Otherwise, I'd call the lactation people and see if they can offer any other suggestions. I found figuring out if what I ate was the problem to be difficult since the range of opinion of when food would show up in my breastmilk varied from 4 to 72 hours. It was impossible to figure out if no one could say how long it took to show up there.

[chlobo]

its just so heartbreaking to watch. The poor thing is asleep and then all of the suddent she starts to crunch up and grunt. it looks so uncomfortable. And she does this many times an hour. I just can't seem to do anything to make her feel better and I have no idea what else to change in my diet.

As an aside, giving up milk hasn't made me any less gassy either LOL.

[lrg]

I know, we were the same way. We were so worried about what he was doing at night that we filmed him with the night-vision on our camera and brought it in and played it for the pediatrician!!!

Ask your doctor about the Gripewater. My friend swore it was her savior. Her son was never diagnosed with colic, but she used it anyway and she said it cured the problem completely until he outgrew it.

Between not knowing when things showed up in my milk and barely ever being able to get food in myself that first 2 months, I found the food-elimination thing impossible. I did try, though. Someone else told me leafy greens could be the culprit. Imagine being a vegetarian with your main diet consisting of dairy, salads, and beans and rice and all of them possibly being the cause of your baby's unhappiness! For me, I saw no difference in him when I eliminated these things from my diet.

[Rachels]

The most common culprits are dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, and nuts. If you don't notice a difference off dairy, add it back into your diet and try eliminating the others one by one. A few days off those will tell you-- you don't have to wait the full two weeks like you do with dairy.

My babe had lots of food sensitivities, and our greatest help came from taking her to a naturopath for diagnosis. Within 36 hours of that visit, she was astonishingly better.


-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[chlobo]

whats a naturopath? And what did they end up diagnosing?

[Rachels]

A naturopath uses natural medicine, often homeopathics or herbs. I had taken Abigail to EVERYBODY else, and was out of ideas. Standard allergy testing is notoriously unreliable in babies under 18 months, but the naturopathic stuff is great (and completely noninvasive). I can't describe how gassy and uncomfortable she had been. It was just awful. But 36 hours after our ND visit (when I had eliminated the allergenic foods), she was one happy baby. And she slept. She has since grown out of most of her sensitivities, but the biggies for us were eggs, dairy, oats, tomatoes, nuts, and garlic. There were TONS of foods I cut out in those first few months, but she got better quickly. It was absolutely worth it.

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[durga8]

DS was also very gassy and miserable at that age. I tried eliminating just about everything possible from my diet while bf-ing and it didn't make a difference. Eventually, time did! Some things that were suggested to us were Gripe Water, Chamomile tea and holding the baby upright. We used to walk him around for a long time in a Baby Bjorn until he felt comfortable. He is still gassy with formula, though not in the same kind of pain he had before.

hang in there!
durga8

[jd11365]

Gripe Water was our lifesaver...run, don't walk to get it. And we also "bicycled" her legs to get the gas out...also very helpful for those painful scrunch and groan moments. Just lay her flat on her back and take her legs and push her knees into her belly in a bicycle motion...she should release gas pretty easily this way and feel immediate relief...hopefully. I totally feel for you and the baby...we had a terrible time of it. But, with the Gripe Water and the bicycle movements it became a bit easier.

HTH and GL!

Jamie
Mommy to Kayla
5-1-03