Severe reflux (CMPI plus multiple allergies) and not sure how to deal with sleep

[sotiredicoulddie]

I am close to breaking point. My DS is 7 months and has had terrible silent reflux from birth (his older sister had it too but not this bad.) He has never really slept for more than 1.5hrs at a stretch and its generally closer to 20-40mins. The exception to this is if he's upright in the sling and he does most of his naps like this so that I can get some rest but obviously not practical in the night. He is seeing a paediatrician and on a max dose of Omeprazole plus Neocate formula due to a number of allergies. I just recently stopped breast-feeding as my milk was clearly making him uncomfortable - despite cutting out milk/egg/soy for the past 4 months. Since he is now well established on solids and finally moving up the centiles instead of down I have also managed to more or less cut out the night feeds and he has never fed to sleep as the feeding just aggravates his symptoms. But the night weaning hasn't really seemed to help. Even if he self-settles at the start of the night he still wakes every 20-30mins at least for the first few hours and though I try to feed him a good 45mins before putting him to bed he is horribly windy for hours and I'm pretty sure his uncomfortable stomach is preventing him from settling.

My question i whether this is all physiological (and a matter of waiting until his system matures) or if we'd benefit from a professional sleep consultant to help us commit to a plan. I know they're very expensive but I'm supposed to start work next month and just don't know how I'm going to survive. (Plus its really affecting my daughter's sleep and all our family relationships.) I'd really rather not go down the CC route - especially if its not just behavioural - but I equally wonder whether the gentle methods would work... I've weaned him off his dummy a number of times but always end up giving it back to him when he seems in pain from the wind...

Any advice or recommendations would be really welcome (we're based in north London...)

[babyboyHarrison]

My little boy had horrible reflux and the only way we got sleep at night was by co-sleeping so we could hold him on an angle. It wasn't till he was 7 months old that we found a wedge that we put in the cot and a funny Velcro wrap to hold him in place (otherwise he'd slide down and end up sideways in the bottom of the cot). This kept him inclined and helped stop him being sick. He was on gaviscon and ranitidine till he was over 1 year old. The ranitidine is an antacid and it seemed to stop the acid hurting him, the gaviscon thickened up the milk in his tummy to try and reduce how much he was sick.

We used the snoozz sleep positioner from babyreflux.co.uk but sure there are other products out there that would help. Not trying to advertise but it worked for us. Looks like there are more products available now than there were 2 years ago.

I remember taking photos of him and sending e-mails to my husband on the rare occasions that he slept not being held for more than 30 minutes.

It will get better. You have survived 7 months already and the vast majority of babies with reflux are completely better by 1 year.

Good luck and hope the advice helps.

[summerdreams]

No advice on the sleep as my 17 month had been like this since birth and is still the same id ask for ranitidine because as some one else mentioned its an ant acid and works diffrently to omeprazole also, we've managed with highest dose omeprazole, ranitidene and 2 sachets of gaviscon in the last bottle at night and also been on neocate since 4 months and we have lots of allergys and intolerances that we're still figuring out but its a very fine balance of meds and even if the gaviscons missed he's up all night screaming. My situations diffrent most babies do grow out of it by one I really hope your lo does as its so hard