suggestions for helping a baby with reflux

[CatDean]

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speak to your gp, it may be minor or it can sometimes be a sign of milk protein. dd1 was six by the time they decided acid refulx was a major problem. worth investigating and by then it had already wrecked some of her permanent teeth. she now has oral antacids prescribed. I thought I was doing the best by breast feeding when the likelihood was that she was actually struggling with my breast milk.

We were prescribed ranitidine as well as the gaviscon and that helped enormously.

Sitting him in a bouncy chair (if he's big enough) or carrying him upright against your shoulder or in an upright sling for half an hour or so after each feed could help too, it did for us.

Are you BFing or FFing?

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until ds was 12 weeks old, he'd cry every evening for hours on end. he'd fall asleep from exhaustion (upright against our chests), then wake 2 minutes later, screaming in pain.
was heartbreaking. still to this day not sure whether colic or reflux (he was also projectile sick constantly, and coughed / gagged / hiccuped a lot, so think it was reflux).

anyway, ranitidine helped loads. he suddenly started sleeping in the evening and whilst he was still sicky a lot, he didn't have the pain/discomfort he had before.

Gaviscon worked a treat for DS but it did make him a bit constipated. I don't think you get that particular side effect with ranitidine, but we were happy to continue with the Gaviscon as his sluggish bowels were a doddle compared to the reflux.

I think Gaviscon and Ranitidine work best when you use both rather than just one of them. Also, although Gaviscon says to give it after the feed I found it waaaaaaay more effective to give before, that way if there is some sickiness straight after the feed, you only lose milk, not medicine IYSWIM.

Agree that Gav does make the poo a little firmer, but like fb says, that's much easier to deal with than a screaming constant fountain of puke.

have you seen the 'baby whisperer' episode with the baby with reflux, they had some great equipment to encourage being upright including a cot wedge which the baby was strapped to when sleeping

My DS had reflux. He was a happy spitter so not distressed but sick a lot. It did turn out when we weaned him that he was allergic to cows milk, and when I then cut it out of my diet, he stopped being sick. So you could try cutting it out. No one suggested that to me and I wish they had now.

My son also suffered badly with reflux and he was prescribed ranitidine and Dom Peridom, these both suppress the production of stomach acid, this coupled with a wedge pillow in his cot helped for about 7 months. After this time we spoke to his consultant and agreed to move him onto infant Gaviscon so that his stomach would produce the acids needed but that he wouldn't suffer. As he is that bit bigger he is doing really well and we hardly ever get the sickness which he used to get.
Def get the wedge pillow as this really helps with the sleeping through the night.

Gaviscon worked to some extent with my dt1 who suffered terribly (was hospitalised for a after aspirating during worst bout). We kept her as upright as possible, limited tummy time to before feeds, did not try to wind her, but lifted her arm (think it was left one) and rubbed her side which seemed to bring any wind up more gently.

Going dairy free for bf ds3 worked wonders, he was reflux free within days. He can tolerate a small amount of dairy now (9mths). I also cut out caffeine for the early months and his colic stopped.

huge epathy for you. Have you done a search on the mn archives on this topic? Iu think there is a lot of info there.

DS2 slept in the baby boucner thing for a while to keep him upright.

You poor things

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interesting that you are a big cheese eater - so am I - and DS2 had HUGE probs with my breast milk, I think due to my 'diet'...

My sympathies - DS2 exactly the same.

IMHO - no gaviscon does not work.....nothing at all helped DS2 or eased his predicament despite following all the guidelines.

Best advice we had was from the paeds at hospital after his tests to ensure it wasn't a serious underlying problem who said "get him weaned" Not at 6 weeks old OBVIOUSLY! But try hard to just ride this wave - its only another 8 weeks or so til you can start introducing solids. The advice we got was that as long as you are careful about what you give baby - ie stick to baby rice and veg and fruit you can wean at 4 months....