Some of our members have shared their experiences below - hopefully you will find these interesting and of use!

If you wish to add you own experience please PM Lisa

Alfie suffered really badly with wind - i think that this was from the moment he was born really altho cant be sure. He was bf for the first couple fo weeks and i remember the first night i had him he cried and cried and cried. I was gutted. I remember thinking that newborn babies were meant to sleep all the time - so why didnt mine?! From when i brought him home he seemed in pain all the time. Once i moved him to formula he ended up 10 times worse. He would cry all day and night, go bright red in the face, scream in pain, bring him knees up to his chest and fart like mad all night. I used to ask the HV what i cud do and she was like "ah its normal it will get better over the time " which didnt help me at all. I used to dread bed time as he was even worse and often found myself in tears over it.

I started him on Infacol at about 3 weeks which didnt do much good. I tried him on gripe water at about 4 weeks which would work occasionally but he was still quite bad. I also tried Detinox in his bottles which mafe a little difference but not much. Colief also didnt work. When he was about 8 weeks old we tried changing his milk to cow and gate comfort. after about 4 days we noticed a big difference. he didnt seem in pain during the night and would burp after nearly every feed. It continued to get better and better from there and now he bring his own wind up himself.

Honastly, it was the worst part of being a parent so far - nobody warned me how scary it would be. But it does get better over time!!

x

I breastfed Caitlin for the first 8 weeks. Weeks 0-2 went well and then she became very unsettled. She wanted fed every 1-2 hrs and seemed to scream for an hr after she was fed. She would pull her knees up to her chest and scream so much she would stop breathing and we would have to blow on her face to get her to take a breath. From about 4 wks she would maybe not settle to sleep until midnight (after trying from 930), wake at 2 for a feed and then scream until 5am. She always seemed worse from 5pm-5am. She generally only settled sleeping upright on my chest.
She was having 6+ runny nappies a day which the HV blamed on me eating to much fruit (though twice she went 6 days without going & then exploded, again HV said BF babies could do this). She also thought Caitlin had reflux or colic. We tried all the colic medicines and infant gaviscon - didnt make a difference.

By 7 wks I was desperate & thought my milk wasnt filling her. Gave her a teeny bit of SMA which she hated. I tried again the next morning and she took another tiny amount. That day her eyelids went red and by late afternoon she was out in a rash. Took her to out of hrs doc who said it could be a virus or an allergy to my perfume. The next week I tried her with aptamil. She took 4oz at lunch and settled to sleep for 2hrs after seeming very content. I thought Id cracked it so gave her another 4oz at tea. Within 10 min her eyes were red, she had a rash and her mouth/chin were a white/blue colour. The rest of her face was bright red, like a full rash. She was quite sleepy. Rang out of hrs doc who told us to ring ambulance. In ambulance she got oxygen and at the hospital she was finally diagnosed with a cows milk allergy. This is more serious than lactose intolerance.

It was explained to me that the dairy in my diet was passed on in my breastmilk. This was what had been causing all the intestinal pain to Caity for the last 8 weeks as she was very allergic. Id thought Id been doing the best for my daughter drinking glasses of milk, having cheese sandwhiches, chocolate when I was depressed lol... I was told I could continue to BF if I eliminated all dairy eg no milk, cheese, youghurts, butter, cakes, biscuits, creamy sauces, ice cream, chocolate, a lot of crisps, batter, pancakes, muffins etc I decided I couldnt do it and agreed to try her on Nutramigen. I get it free on perscription. OMG the difference it made. Within 24 hrs I had a different baby. I could finally enjoy her without being so tired and frustrated I wanted to scream or cry everytime she did. She went 4 hrs between feeds, was smiling, lay happily on her mat....

Weaning was pretty normal to begin with. Fruit/veg purees, Id make her mash up with her formula milk or soya butter. I found alpro soya youghurts she could have, she can eat ordinary sliced bread. I just have to be so careful reading labels. Milk has so many different names eg whey, caseine etc and is in so many foods you wouldnt think of.

Caitlin see's a dieticain every 4 mths to check her weight and make sure that her diet isnt too restricted. She is due to see the consultant in October to review her case. I was told to avoid eggs until she was one due to a link in allergies, as yet Iv been to scared to try her with one. Many children do grow out of a milk allergy at around 1-2yrs. Im due to test her with youghurt or butter next week and am pretty scared about it. I am going to go ahead with it though as I would love not to have to worry so much.

Sorry it was so long!

Caelyn was breastfed for 2 weeks then i used expressed breast milk in the day and formula at night for another 4. Initially i started her on aptamil but it seemed to disagree with her a bit so i put her on cow and gate comfort instead. At about 8 weeks she started having feeding probs. She would drink an ounce or so then start screaming like she was in terrific pain, he legs would go straight out rigid, she would arch her back and go bright red, it was awful. She would cry for up to 45 mins at a time. But she was still hungry as once i calmed her down she was seeking the bottle again. Sometimes id get the bottle in her only for the pain to start anything up to 2 hours later and sometimes she would just yak up tremendous amounts of it either straight after or again up to 2 hours after. After 3 days i was at my wits end and as it was a saturday night and had no gp access i went to work with her. She was seen by a senior doc who said she had infant reflux and gave me infant gaviscion for her bottles. The gaviscon worked like a charm...for a week. I was told it was ok with the comfort milk and though it was like milkshake and i had to buy a faster flow teat she seemed more settled.

Unfortunately after a week it stopped working and she was as bad as ever. I saw gp who referred me to hosp but couldnt get an appointment for ages. Luckily a friend of mine was a paediatric sho who had been there when c was born and she sent me an fb message asking how it was going and i told her what was going on and she pulled a few strings to speed up my appointment for me (please dont curse me as you read this). I saw the paeds who said it was def infant reflux and a thoughroughly good going case of it at that. I showed them the diary id been keeping of her bad spells which at that point were a minimum of once a day and often more and she wasnt gaining weight too much. They put her on a medication called ranitidine which is for reducing stomach acids as the pain screaming was caused when the acid in her stomach was coming up her food pipe into her chest, throat and mouth and giving her awful heartburn and gave her another medication called domperidone to reduce vomiting. They also wrote to my gp saying if things didnt improve to increase the dose of both drugs and to start her on a prescription formula.

Though she improved a tiny touch she was still in a lot of pain and discomfort so i went back to my gp only to fnd the letter had gone missing. At this point i went totally nuts after weeks of watching my baby in pain and not eating and rang the hospital and generally threw all my teddies out my pram, seems someone listened cos my gp was called and given the go ahead to tweak her meds and i was given a follow up appointment for a review.

Caelyn was started on a formula called Enfamil AR which contains rice starch, its thin in the bottle but when it makes contact with the stomach acid it thickens. Between that and the increased meds dosage we managed to get her bad days down to every 2 or 3 days from daily. I did a lot of reading and used every trick in the book from left side/head up sleeping, white noise and prolonged swaddling to upright an hour after feeding, a vibrating bouncy chair and letting her have free run of her dummy. At my follow up review they said as she was at fairly maiximal doses of her drugs for her size but still having bad days half the week they wanted to try a lactose intolerance test just to rule it out. It involved stopping all her drugs and enfamil for a week and using a hypoallergenic formula called nutramigen.

The new formula smelt like it had already been digested once! It was like gone off horlicks that smell and c hated it with a passion, plus stopping her meds meant her symptoms came back with a vengeance and after 3 days i refused to do it anymore and put her back on enfamil and her meds. Saw the doc again who agreed i had done the right thing as she would have improved not gotten worse if it had been lactose intolerance and it was just severe reflux (i say 'just' that was plenty for us). They said as she was gaining weight and her bad days were down to 2 or 3 a week they were at the limit of what they could do for now as they didnt wanna operate and i would have refused anyway as she would likely grow out of it. They said she would have to be on her meds til a year old and her formula then at a year i could wean her off her meds and put her on cows milk.

I went away and researched however and found that early weaning could help severely refluxy babies. When i asked about it i was told not to do it and to persevere with the meds and formula. So i ignored them. I weaned c at 17 weeks dead on. Initially i didnt notice a huge difference other than she adored food but she wasnt dropping her milk intake and was loving her purees so i carried on and once i got her onto 3 meals a day it was like she was a different child. Maximum of one bad day a week and she was happy, not vomiting. She gained weight well and slept well. I eventually took her off her meds at 6 months, 6 months ahead of schedule and she loved her food so much i started her on finger foods at same time. I was able to wean her off swaddling and stop all the head up sleeping id been doing too.

She was discharged from paeds at 6 months as she was doing so well so id say to anyone dont be totally afraid to put a bit of your own knowledge of your baby into treating them. Doctors are the first point of call for a sick kid but what you think matters too. If id listened to the docs id have had many more months of misery and more importantly so would caelyn.

Isla was a very 'sicky' baby, and the Dr's, Hv's, and MW's said that this was normal. Isla would projectile vomit most bottles, and some distance too! All our carpets were wrecked!

I kept saying to the DR that this couldnt be right, it was heartbreaking! We'd battle for an hour to get her bottles in, and then whoosh..up it came! It was seriously soul destroying. This was not an occasional feed, it was pretty much every one!

I was basically told I has a hysterical mother as she was gaining weight each week and thriving. That was down to pretty much permanent feeding by us, to try and keep some milk in.

We tried loads of different formulas...we started on SMA gold, then nurture, then Soya milk, and finally found one that improved life a little...Cow & gate comfort. Then Gp agreed to prescribe us Colief & Gaviscon powder to add to the bottles.

We limped along like this until she was about 6-9mths, she was still regularly sick, but nowhere near as bad as she was.

We then discovered Enfamil AR milk on prescription and life changed for the better. We still added colief and Gav until about 15mths, then removed the colief, and then a couple of months later we stopped the Gav.

The Dr's now say we shouldve been listened to sooner, as she was/is a severe reflux baby, and only now at 21 months is she 'through it'...although maybe once a month we still get a 'refluxy day'.

For us, weaning didnt solve our problems, as she had developed such a 'gag reflex' that anything with any substance in it at all made her bring up even more of her stomach content.

Isla only started tolerating tiny lumps at 12-13 months old, but then quickly got to grips with it. This whole thing stressed me out a lot, and would like to reassure you that your baby will get to grips with food in their own time......I cried the first time she ate 'lumps' as I honestly thought she would never do it!