Zack has been struggling with painful gas, but I think we are more than half way to making it better. We tried cutting dairy out of my diet, and we tried Mylicon drops that the doctor recommended, but neither made any real difference. We now think that the primary problem is that I am producing too much milk, and so Zack was only ever getting the very sweet fore-milk, and not the richer hind-milk that should come later in a feeding. He was getting too much sugar and not enough fat, he couldn't digest the excess lactose which produced gas, and he was always hungry, because what he did digest metabolized so quickly. So we've been keeping him nursing from the same side for a few meals, to make sure he gets a good balance of sugar and fat, and to encourage my "enthusiastic" milk supply to adjust itself to his needs. We've been doing this for a few days now, and it seems to be helping a lot. He still has some gas, but I think that is now mostly from gulping fast-flowing milk and swallowing air---he isn't good at burping, or maybe we aren't good at getting him to burp. He's also sleeping for longer without gas or hunger waking him up, which is nice. And he doesn't spend nearly as much time writhing in pain, which is the really important thing.
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