My wife has always hated Alexandria getting fussy from gas or what she suspects may be an upset tummy caused by her Similac Advance Formula. I have never really been convinced that there was a big problem.
If the baby was fussy, it would normally not be for more than about 15 or 20 minutes once or twice a day. The fussiness would usually end with a fart and a suddenly relaxed baby.
On one occasion, my wife was very concerned about how much the baby seemed to be straining. Realizing that we had a doctor’s appointment the next day, I grabbed our digital camera that can make short movie clips and filmed exactly what the baby was doing. I put the movie on my laptop and brought it to the doctor the next day.
Upon seeing the clip of the baby straining the doctor looked up and us and said “isn’t technology great?”. We replied, yes… do you see a problem? He thinks for a second and promptly replies “I’m not impressed by anything you just showed me”…
Hahaha. Unexpected, but very direct answer. He then explained that switching formula can often cause unexpected and undesired results and that a little fussiness a few times a day really didn’t justify changing formulas.
Instead he suggested we buy some baby gas drops like Little Tummys. They are basically baby Gas X. They collect all the little gas bubbles in the stomach and combine them into a bigger one and passes more easily and therefore, reduces bloating.
We’ve pretty much been addicted to them ever since. Alexandria still has come bouts of discomfort from time to time, but nothing terrible.
The problem is that it seems that the baby only has these bouts when we have relatives over. The relatives insist that we are hurting her by not switching formulas. They have the impression that she’s like that all the time.
Well, the pressure finally got to my wife. On an expedition to the baby store, she picked up a can of Similac Sensitive formula saying “we’ll just try it”. A few days later, without my prior knowledge, wifey decided to make the switch. The results were disasterous.
The baby suddenly went from eating about every three hours to every hour to hour and a half. She was constantly hungry and fussy as if she just couldn’t get satisfied. She was also peeing constantly.
Wifey tried to keep this up all day long. I finally decided near bed time that it was time to switch back as I didn’t want either of us up every hour all night long. That made no sense at all.
My wife tried to give her the Similac Sensitive again the next day to see if maybe it was something else that made the baby insane with hunger. Nope. Same result.
We switched back to Similac Advance with Early Shield and haven’t looked back since. I know my wife is still secretly jones’in to switch formulas again, but I am not convinced.
Have any luck switching forumulas with your child? Did it work? Any advice? Please let us know with a comment below!
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I’m curious as to the outcome of your switch. Did you keep your baby on the Similac Sensitive or Similac Advance. I share your exact same story. Our baby is fussing maybe an hour out of the day and seems relieved when passing gas at times. I’ve switched today (10/19/090 to the Sim Sensitive and hope that I’m not making a mistake.
On the early shield (Similac reg form) we’re only making it 3-4 hrs at night with our 5 week old. I didn’t know if the formula was causing this or not. I hope you can respond.
Sharon, you are actually doing really well making 3 – 4 hours a night at 5 weeks. Alexandria started making it most of the way through the night at two and a half to three months.
Basically the baby’s stomach isn’t big enough to hold a lot of food and since her diet is all liquid, it passes within a few hours, hence the need to feed once or twice during the night.
Once your baby gets big enough to hold more food in her tummy, she’ll make it longer stretches.
As for the formula, we went back to the Similac Advance with early shield. For the gas, just try to do a good job burping your baby during feedings and try the little tummies gas drops. We swear by them.
The Similac Sensitive I think just made things worse as it seems to have a thinner consistency that passes through the babies even faster than the regular.
let me know how it goes!