My dd is 5months old and I think she could have silent reflux but GP says it's highly unlikely because 'most reflux babies are skinny'. My daughter is a very big baby, born on 98th centile and has just gone off the scale for weight. HV wasn't concerned as she is also very tall and reckons she will burn it off when she starts moving etc..but I am wondering if part of her weight gain could be due to comfort feeding. She is EBF.
She has never been a good sleeper, but from about 3.5 months her sleep has been terrible. I first thought this might be due to the 4 month sleep regression, then she got a tooth so we reckoned she must be teething, then another tooth came along... but she's getting worse and I'm sure it's reflux related. She wakes up almost every 45mins through the night. If I put her in bed with me she might sleep longer, but never more than an hour and a half. Often when I go in she is coughing and has stuff in her mouth. During the day about half an hour after she feeds she coughs and gags and sounds like she is growling. She is such a happy baby otherwise and is obviously in pain when this is happening and it seems like it's getting worse.
I went to see the doc today and he basically said 'she's too fat, don't feed her at night.' and disregarded any thought about reflux and told me we would just keep an eye on it for 2-3 weeks. I am really not the sort of person to rush to the doctors so was annoyed he wouldn't even consider it, especially as it'd been going on for well over a month. So I am no better off and still have no solution to helping my dd.
Does anyone have any experience of silent reflux and if so does this sound typical? Is there anything I can do to help her before going back to docs? I have been reading around and all the advice seems so contradictory. Should I feed her little and often and if so does this include through the night? Will weaning help? Was planning to do BLW as it worked so well with my son but happy to do whatever really. Should I eliminate stuff from my diet just in case? I am going to try and change her routine so I am not feeding her to sleep for naps etc. Does that sound right?
Sorry for ridiculously long post. Any advice would be much appreciated!
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Infant feeding
Silent reflux in big baby?
lemontop · 28/12/2012 21:22
Ds had silent reflux and was on 90th %
With him it was evident something was up from birth. He was very unsettled after every single feed, worse at night, so he cried almost all the time. If you listened carefully you could hear it coming up in his throat and going back down again 
and he would arch his back a lot too.
What does your HV think? I think they are often better at this kind of thing than GPs. For us infant gaviscon was a huge help as was keeping him upright as much as poss (sling, baby nest, propped up cot) infacol can aggravate it so avoid that. Weaning and learning to sit both helped massively too. A dummy may also help.
Good luck - hope you get to the bottom of this very soon. I also had a HP tell me he was gaining too much weight to have reflux 
which is a load of bollocks.
My GP was useless when I went. I had no real idea what was up with DS2 but a friend suggested silent reflux. The GP said he was constipated because he didn't poo everyday and said water between feeds and prune juice. 
.
I went to speak to a breastfeeding counsellor and she suggested reflux, advised me to speak to HV who backed her diagnosis. I went back to the GP and asked for gaviscon. She reluctantly gave me a prescription but it made an immediate difference although as a pp has said, it is a bugger to give.
Maybe try other avenues of support, like breastfeeding support worker/counsellor and see if they can help convince the doctor/hv
Good luck. I hope you get something sorted soon.
Your LO sounds exactly like DS at the same age. He was never diagnosed with silent reflux as the GP said the same as yours, I felt like I was wasting her time so I never went back.
I am convinced though that that's what he has, he was very uncomfortable after every feed, had hiccups frequently (still does if he laughs a lot but they don't seem to bother him now) cried all the time, was a nightmare to get to sleep, arched his back and I could hear his tummy sort of retching, it was horrible
If I were you I'd persevere with trying to get a diagnosis, change GP if you need to, don't be fobbed off.
It might be worth changing your diet a bit, I decided to eliminate things one at a time and got lucky, turned out it was made 100 times worse when I had caffeine and when I gave it up it stopped almost completely (on the odd occasion I had it by accident we had an awful night Where he was obviously in a lot of pain) So it might be worth cutting something out for a week or two just in case.
With regard to feeding, I think it comforts them to feed (hence not being skinny) So I continued to feed on demand for as long as DS wanted and BLW was just a continuation of this. I did try and hold him upright after feeds, change his nappy before so it didn't put pressure on his tummy from being too tight, only rubbed his back to wind him and carried him in the sling a lot. I think as a mother you often have instincts and if so you should go with them. I hope you find some kind of solution or relief soon 
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