5 week old struggling with gas/poop while feeding

[shoelaces17]

My 5 week old son and I have been breastfeeding since day one, just this last week he has began to fuss and cry when feeding during the day when he is trying to poop or pass gas. The only thing that makes it better is when he unlatches struggling to pass gass or poop I put him over my shoulder and pat his back he then passes the gas or poops or the pain simply goes away.

This does not happen at all during the night. I mean not once from 11pm til 9am 9am til 9pm though he struggles to pass the gas or poop during the day. I am so confused, I don't think it's anything in my diet, even though I haven't limited my diet at all but am obviously willing to because I hate to see him in pain but it's hard to imagine that it's something in my diet since it seems to only happen during the day.

So is he just more aware of passing stuff during the day and he finds it uncomfortable? I think I read in one of my baby books babies become aware of the need to poop after a few weeks after birth and their stomach muscles aren't strong and its hard for them to push it out.

I'm not sure if that is what is going on or what, but I hope this is normal because it is really putting a damper on our breastfeeding experience and is starting to make me dread eating time for him because he gets so fussy.

 

[missk1989]

sorry i cant think of a solution to this other than to break the latch every ten mins and rub his back. Maybe you could contact your midwife?

 

[shoelaces17]

Unfortunately we deal with the Pediatrician now. Hoping it gets better in a few days, it seemed to get better when I used a product called Windi on him before I fed him so I will have to see if it keeps helping.

 

[sheldonsmommy]

In the beginning my son had horrible gas, so I was burping him several times per feed. Even with that, he'd wake up full of farts. Also he'd cry when trying to poop. But that doesn't always mean pain, it's just impossible to tell unfortunately.

I will tell you that now, at 2.5 months, it's gotten a lot better.

 

[cflower04]

Could it be the position you are feeding him in? Do you lie down at night to feed him but use a different position during the day? Your milk changes at night too. It has a different balance of hormones so maybe that is a factor too.

 

[shoelaces17]

I spoke to soon, last night I maybe got 3 hours of sleep the whole night because he did nothing but cry after every feed. I feed him laying down at night, and during the day I mainly do cross cradle or foot ball hold. Today I have been trying to keep his head above his stomach so he is kind of at an angle when I feed him. I really don't know what to do it is so sad to see him cry but at the same time though I burp him all the time and he still has a ton of gas.

I hope he does grow out of it, I'm thinking when he is really tired he just doesn't fight the gas like he does during the day.

 

[Yipee]

My baby was like this pretty much from day one. It felt so awful when it was happening; I couldn't stand seeing her apparently in pain and felt so helpless to do anything about it.

The good news is; it does pass with time! It started getting a lot better for us around 8 weeks, and now at 12 weeks she has no problem with it at all.

back then though, I cycled her legs, did a lot of baby massage, and warm baths to help her relax and let the gas pass. Also, trying to make sure she got plenty of sleep (as much as possible) seemed to help. Sometimes babies get so wound up they don't sleep enough, and this makes everything so much worse.

I would also give her a product called Colic Calm. It really helped, and doesn't seem to have anything bad in it; no alcohol, and even the herbs are homeopathic, so just minute, minute amounts. I really recommend giving it a try.

 

[Yipee]

oh, and i did give up dairy until quite recently. never could tell if it helped or not, since i wasn't totally consistent with it, and she was also starting to get better on her own at that time too. i do think it's a good thing to try though. nowadays, i can eat just about anything and she doesn't have a problem.