silent reflux will it ever get better

[kimberleydodd]

I'm not sure that im posting this in right place but hoping someone can help! My almost 5 month old little boy has suffered with silent reflux pretty much since day 1- no sick just acid :( he is on Zantac for it but it is by no means 'cured' he is uncomfortable during feeds pulling on and off the breast and arching his back in pain. Every day or so we have a bad attack usually just b4 a feed where he just screams in pain and hunger but wont eat or settle. I end up having to sshh and pat him to sleep in my arms to calm him & feed him in his sleep. He is v uncomfortable after feeds despite holding him up for half hour or more. Despite my best efforts he cant settle himself to sleep at all and never has. I have to pat/walk him to sleep every time day and night. In the day he naps for 30min unless i walk around with him then he will sleep maybe an hour and a half which i try to do once a day else he gets too overtired. At night he will wake 30mins after going down after an hour of settling will sleep maybe 2 hours then feeds then maybe 2/3 hours then feeds then an hour and he wakes up uncomfortable, the only way to keep him settled is to walk around the room patting his bum at 4/5am! I had been feeding him little and often burnt last weighing he had lost weight so have been told i need to feed 2hourly and also been given hypoallergenic formula from gp to top up as he has a suspected cows milk intolerance, we r waiting on a dietician appointment for this. (until this week was exclusively breastfeeding on a dairyfree diet also nothing acidic/spicy/tomatoey/chocolatey!!!! He loves the formula drinks it all but has been up every hour all night with gas pains since starting it- gp says to give it a few weeks and isn't concerned! I hope he settles on it as keen to stop breastfeeding now but obviously can't until he is ok with formula.

i have a 2 year old aswell and my partner is fantastic with her but doesn't have much patience with the baby so its like we have a child each :-( me and other half are constantly arguing he blames me for baby not being able to settle him self he thinks ive been too soft which is true i suppose but i cant listen to him cry in pain as crying makes the reflux worse. Its my job as a mother to make my baby comfortable and i feel like such a failour cause i cant. All i want is for him to be content and happy and sleep... Also apparently in selfish and lazy for wanting to sleep, i know sleepless nights are normal but absolutely no sleep is not! Ive not had more than 3 hours straight in 5 months and its killing me. I'm so sorry for the rant but need to get this off ny chest. I'm so desperate to help my little boy learn to self settle as im sure this is the problem but don't see how he can when he is uncomfortable, any advice appreciated xx

You're doing amazingly! First of all, is there anyone at all who can let you get a proper sleep? The world will seem a lot more manageable afterwards

In our case, medication made little difference even omeprazole just backed him up, and nor did diet challenges or trying hydrolysed formula - sadly the only solution was time. Slings were also our saviour, and things also got a lot better once we stopped trying to 'fix' him and went with the flow. Our ds was an unlucky one who took ages to recover, but even so he made a big leap at 6 months - he made his first uninterrupted hour of sleep!! - then again a few months later when he really got into solids, and by then again when he was walking at 11 months.

One of the best pieces of advice I was given sounds really obvious, but a friend who had twins - one refluxy one not- said to remember that it is nothing to do with their personality and soon you will see the real him. By 18 months my ds was a different child - instead of the sad grumpy exhausted baby who yowled through every mothers group, at 2 he's still the sunniest little child we know, still on the small side and not a huge eater but developing really well, very social and a joy to parent. We do feel like all of us have earned it!

Hope you can get some support, that's the most important thing, and maybe even time to have a coffee out with your partner, it's easy to feel like colleagues in child raising instead of lovers, especially with another child in the mix. It's no comfort now, but one day not far in the future you'll be looking back on this and thinking it was all one rushed sleepless blur, and aren't you glad that things are so much better now

My DS had silent reflux until he was 4 months, so I know how horrible it is to watch them in pain. Luckily we hit on the right combo of meds for him. We were given Omeprezole at first, and later Infant Gaviscon too. It was the Gaviscon that actually seemed to work for him and made the world of difference. Although a pain to give while breast feeding. If your boy's still arching his back and coming on and off the breast it sounds like he's not got the right combination of meds yet.

Also, you mentioned your DH thinks he's crying because he's bored, but with my DS his reflux pain howling was nothing like his bored mewling. You def can't spoil a baby who's in pain.

It sounds like you're doing a great job with very little support and virtually no sleep. What helped me get through it was knowing that it has to get better at some point and that he wouldn't remember the pain he experienced. And in fact now, less than a couple of months later he's the most smiley, happy baby you could hope to meet. Dig deep. You'll get through it.

thank you both, i really enjoyed reading your stories, hearing that others have been through this and made it out the other side gives me hope :) I can cope with having a messy house, next to no life and having no sleep i just cant cope with my baby being in pain. My oh thinks im crazy cause id walk around the house if needed all night holding him to sleep, he says he wont ever learn to sleep on his own but the way i see it is Lucus (baby) has enough to deal with without being exhausted all the time..he still gets no where near enough sleep but if i cant take the pain away for him so the least i can do is take the tiredness away. i wish i could help him fall asleep on his own any tips or should i accept that for now it wont happen? X

Oh I could have written your story! Dd is now 26m and a total delight! But but but. She is still on mega doses of omeprazole, still reacts to the merest sniff of milk, soya and egg, and still struggles with reflux when poorly with colds etc.

Things that helped.

Persevere with slings. Try a sling meet to see if he is happier more upright, as may be hunched over in some of the softer ones. But sling, pushchair, long walk for that crucial quiet time for you.

Agree with others who have said, try omitting soya. Are you still bf? If yes, could you go back to ebf, it's a good way of trying different things in your diet to see if there is a reaction. You can buy Nutramigen AA in a pharmacy, I think it's about £20 a tin, but could try that to see if there is an obvious difference if ebf not an option? Then present the facts as a fait accompli to the gp.

Weaning to solids, agree again with 4 day rule. I had an awesome spreadsheet lol, but was helpful in pinpointing blueberries as being serious wind inducers

Papaya is supposed to be a good natural anti-acid. Banana is a bit claggy for their sore reflux throats.

Sleep. Ahhh sleep. Omeprazole was what fixed it, seriously. She still woke for feeds, once or twice, but none of the screaming abdabs like she had used to do.

Sorry you haven't any family locally, and that dh is sticking his head in the sand. Make sure you get to a childrens centre near you, for a wee break - our local one used to take dd and rock her and wander round so I could chat to mummy friends and have a

Good luck though, it will pass, it will get better

Thank you :)
The past few days the reflux has actually been not to bad..still uncomfortable for him but no where near as bad as it has been. But he is having really bad tummy ache and trapped wind.. especially troublesome at night and naps. his whole tummy is hard and he's clearly in pain :( i use infacol and put gripe water in his bottles but hr is really struggling to fart!
he's currently fed like this..
7.30am top up BF
10am 6oz formula
1pm BF
3.30 BF
6pm 6oz formula
11/12 BF
2/3 BF
5/6 BF

At the 1pm and 3pm BF he still seems hungry after i dont think theres enough milk! I really am keen to stop BF now but worried that if the milk isnt right itll make things worse... The gas is definatly worse over night so iyo would that be a result of the BF as thats all he has in the night? ( he isnt overlly hungry in night except at 1st feed but its the only way to settle him.. such a nuicence as im stuck holding him up for half hour after each- more often than not he is too uncomfortable to settle after 5am feed so we both have to get up) (like now! he has been up since 5 after waking hourly all night.. spent 10 mins farting ans just had a massive poo! he isn't constipated as does 1 big 1 a day! sorry if tmi) x

I think bad wind just gets to them at night regardless...! If he's only doing the one poo a day, then makes me think intolerance to the milk less likely (we had explosive, seriously offensive diarrhoea) but not impossible - I think they can, less commonly, get constipated too. Is he on gaviscon?

Failing all that, the ways we managed to shift trapped wind...gentle tummy masages in a clockwise direction, cycling legs, lying her on her belly over my knee, warm baths. I also found the position I fed her in made a difference, as she swallowed more/less air depending on this - maybe worth experimenting?

I second the other posters, omeprazole at at least 3mgs per kg, change the formula to neonate or similar, the peptide formula is not the one to prescribe to a baby who reacts to dairy in bm - your giving him the same protein fragments in that that you already know he reacts to, and ditch soya from your diet too. If you did this and gave it a month it could make a life changing difference. If there's still issues I would look for another allergen, most likely eggs or wheat. Your husband is being utterly unhelpful but you sound wary of upsetting him, if he was in pain I bet he'd take the meds. So why does he expect a 5 mo baby to man up? It's up to you if you want to take your child's condition seriously but untreated cmpi has links to problems with solids later on, speech and language delays, attachment disorders, eczema, asthma, colitis and full blown allergies.