is this reflux?

Little Ella has always been a bit of a dozy feeder - at first she was jaundiced so kept falling asleep at the breast and I had to keep her stimulated so she'd finish a feed.  But now, she still latches off throughout a feed and won't take the boobie again until she's comfortable again.  She doesn't always burp, but when she stops feeding I sit her up, and she has a pinched expression on her face, and rolls her eyes in odd directions - she also stretches her neck to hold her head right back (and pushes it back when I try to hold it upright).  She insists on holding her head back like this for a while, and has a really uncomfortable expression on her face while she does it.  She refuses the breast while she's like this, but when it passes, she's back on there without a second thought.  Sometimes I can hear her burp up and swallow immediately - pretty much just like adults with reflux.  So those of you who know what reflux is, does this sound like it? 

Sounds like wind to me, if your concerned visit Crying Over Spilt Milk and they will have symptoms you can look over.

I knew Ella G had something up from her constant screaming and arching her back, and also the smell that ommitted from her mouth when she was refluxing.

Altho it has subsided a little since being on pears and changing to Soy formula due to her dairy allergy.

Thanks, guys.  My midwife came over today and thought wind and a growth spurt could be to blame.  Poor wee Ella's been awake all afternoon, and feeding for most of that, she never settled down for her sleep (little tyke is WAAAYYYY over-tired now) and when she stopped the 'i'm just tired' cry and switched to the kind of cry that lets you know something's wrong, we'd pick her up, and she'd burp, then stop grizzling until we lay her down later...

Anyone used Thompson's Gripe Water and is it any good?  I was going to give it to her if the last burping and finally the dummy didn't work, but OH BLISS..... our little angel's finally asleep. 

Yup Infacol!!

We've used the gripe water but we found Maddie would also bring up part of her feed along with the wind when we used it...not sure why...but with the infacol she only brings up the wind only.

The gripe water is fabulous when she has hiccups though and is getting throughly sick of them!

Thanks for the advice... I think I'll send hubby out for some infacol, but will probably ring my midwife later today as well.  I spoke waaaayyyyy too soon in my last post - Ella wasn't asleep, no, she was having a tiny little wee doze to gear up for her next bout of feeding, burping, crying, feeding... etc, etc.  The longest sleep she's had since 11.30am yesterday is 2 hours and the rest (2 or 3 of them... can't remember much right now though!) were less than an hour.  She's crying good and proper now, and it isn't that 'settling myself to sleep' cry because if it was, it'd have worked by now and she'd be happily asleep! 

Hugs Andie - I can so relate! My two are a pair of gremlins!
One thing my m/w did tell me yesterday was to only feed them evry two hours at the most and to only give them an hour to finish a feed. So from the time they start the feed the have an hour to finish it, be changed etc. and back in bed, and if they are still fussing after an hour, no more feed until at least two hours since the start of the last feed. Apparently otherwise they snack feed and just want to be constantly topped up (which my girls were doing the night before).

It seemed to work for us last night, Sienna had a big screaming session after their 7pm feed so we put her down then just cuddled her etc. till she could have another feed at 9pm and then they both crashed out until 12.30ish.

We used gripe water with Maya, she didn't have much of a problem with wind tho.

I've started giving the girls "tummy time" after feeds before I put them down to help bring up their wind and it seems to be working.

The other night I was so fed up with the pair of them screaming that I tried giving them dummies but all they did was spit them out and look at me like "what do you call this for a joke"

Oh this all sounds so familiar!!

Infacol would be a good answer.Definitley helped Blake. Remember too that altho new babies like to feed often (ie every 2 hours)they also dont know the difference between "wind" and "hunger" and any baby will suck for comfort rather than put up with the wind in their tummy! If you keep feeding them will end up with a bigger problem as their little tummies cant digest food so they get terrible pains. It takes 3 hours to digest a feed I have read in the net.

Once I started not giving in to Blake and really making sure feeds were every three hours and using the Infacol every time before...he started to settle more...less wind and not as much screaming!!!

YAY! thats a great stretch Emma!

I thought I'd better update this thread in case anyone else is reading it, thinking 'that's what my baby does too'...

well, I am so glad I rang my midwife for advice - it turns out Ella's trouble was hunger!!  She'd hit a growth spurt (little did I know), and she needed the chance to suckle away for rediculous amounts of time in order to bring my milk supply up to her needs.  I'd been feeding her on both sides, thinking there was nothing left after each feed, so assuming she'd had enough and must be full.  But little Ella wasn't, and all the crying (and crying, and crying) was because she needed to feed for longer!  So I've been feeding her for long periods of time to build up my supply, and she's a happy baby again.  Only now she wants to feed for hours and hours at a time... that's the next issue to try to iron out!  Anyway, if I hadn't called my midwife, I'd have never known that she wasn't getting enough milk, so am very glad for her help. 

I'm going to see if the Infacol helps shorten her feeds next.  She's had 3-hour-long sessions, and even a 5-hour mish... soooo not sustainable!