It all started on a Friday night as we were leaving a friends house. We were putting everything in the car and then went back inside to get Kalen and Lucas. Lucas was screaming bloody murder, never had we ever heard him scream like that before. We didn't know what was wrong with him. We put him in his car seat and he was still screaming, he wouldn't take a bottle or binky. His poor little face was turning bright red and he had these huge tears rolling down his face. We had no clue how to help him. Nothing was calming him down. We leave only to pull over on the side of the road still in their neighborhood because Lucas was not letting up. We pulled him out of the car seat and tried to feed him again, but nothing. The Hubs started to freak out, wondering if something had happened to Lucas while we were outside. I told him if anything had happened they would have told us. The Hubs called anyways and they reassured us nothing had happened, he just started screaming. We figured it must be a combination of him being overly tired and hungry. So I just kept patting his back and talking to him to try and calm him down. All of a sudden a huge burp came out of this little man. He instantly calmed down. Poor thing had this huge gas bubble stuck in his belly. We were able to get him back in the car seat and head home. He started fussing again in the car ride, but this time I was able to give him his binky and I rubbed his head and continued to talk to him. The whole ride home he never took his eyes off me, like he was afraid I might leave him. The next day the same thing happened and continued all weekend. We couldn't put him down and it became a fight to feed to him. He was only comfortable in your arms and you had to stay standing, he wouldn't even let you sit down and rock him.
What had changed? What was causing all these problems? Where did our happy little man go? I started doing some research online and it seemed he had all the symptoms of being Colicky. Screaming uncontrolably for more than 3 hours a day, not wanting to lay on his back, screaming without any real signs. But most babies start to get over it around 3 months, they don't start at 3 months. So I began to look at his eating schedule. He had started getting more formula than breast milk lately because my supply had started going down and he had upped how much he was eating in each sitting, so it was hard for me to keep up with his demand. But he had never had a problem with the formula up to this point. He seemed to get the most fussy after downing a bottle of formula rather than breast milk. So I started to pump more often and began to take some supplements to help create a bigger supply for the little man. I also know that breast milk is a lot easier to digest than formula. So maybe he was having a hard time switching all day long. We decided to feed him breast milk in the morning until it was gone and then he would have formula the rest of the day. Hoping this would help his little tummy. We tried to make the switch after he naped. He also has never really ate well off the bottles we had. So we figured he might be swallowing too much air while he was eating, so we decided I would get new bottles.
I have heard a lot of good things about the Dr. Brown's bottles so we decided we would try those out. We had been wanting new bottles since Kalen was about 6 months old because the ones we currently had would leak all over the place and that was just extremely annoying. I didn't really want the Dr. Brown's bottles for Kalen because they have all these extra pieces and parts and other than the fact that they leaked he never had a problem with them. It was clear now that it didn't matter if I had to clean extra parts if it meant that Lucas would feel better and stop getting these giant gas bubbles. Well the extra parts are supper easy to clean and it does not really add much time to the regular washing of the bottles. While I was at the store I picked up some gripe water as well, which is suppose to help alleviate gas pains. So we have been mixing it in with his bottles throughout the day. We can tell the difference when it has been a while since he had a dose.
Fast forward to the first time we use them. Instant success. He is eating so much better and I could tell he wasn't swallowing air. All of our efforts seem to be working. Thank Goodness. He still has his bouts of crying and not wanting to eat, but that seems to be when he gets over tired. (He doesn't like to nap)
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