Reflux babies - when does it get better?

[BagofHolly]

I have 15 week old twins (plus a toddler) and the twins both have reflux. One has ordinary reflux and is on domperidone, ranitidine and Enfamil, and the other has silent reflux, with a terrible cough and is on omeprazole, motilium, domperidone, piriton, gaviscon and neocate lcp. Feeding time is a massive faff but we muddle through. However my baby with silent reflux cries A LOT. he's very fractious, difficult to settle, and gets into such a state it's hard to feed him. Our paediatrician has only just added in the omeprazole and piriton so I don't know how long we have to wait to expect a result. He's also told us to wean with babyrice this week, which we've started.
I'm at the end of my rope with it all today, and he's screamed so much that I didn't feel we could go into the garden as it'd disturb the neighbours, so we've been stuck in the house and my DH took them all out for a bit.
I'm so worn out with it all, but especially the screaming that I'm ashamed to say I put him on the playmat in the kitchen and closed the door. I've never ever done that before, and he mercifully settled after a couple of minutes, but I feel so awfully crap and guilty that I can't cope sometimes. I'm awful to be around, snappy and grumpy and I can't think straight so some days I've even forgotten some of their medicines.
My toddler is on ABs for an infection and also has a cold and is whiney and I forgot his lunchtime dose.I know it won't always be as mad and stressful as this but when will it all get better?

You poor thing! My ds who is now 2 and 1/2 had awful reflux as a result of being prem - mainly silent with a bit of vomit thrown in, and I remember those early months with horror - he was on ranitidine and domperidone with liberal infacol as well. How on earth you are coping with two and a toddler I have no idea but well done! All I can say is that it does get easier, and for us starting solids really helped. Not sure if any of this will help you, but these are the things we did to help us through (I'm sure you've tried most of them already, but you never know!).

We propped up the moses basket/cot at one end, and always used the car seat as a pram. He hated ever being flat on his back, so we got a bouncy chair for him during the day that he could be strapped into that was very upright. I changed the position he was in when feeding so that he was sitting upright (when bfeeding and when on a bottle) and always took him off a few minutes after starting for a burp - we found wind always made him really uncomfortable and made him scream alot, so I spent at least half an hour winding him after each feed and would always wind him during a feed at least twice (if a bottle then every 25ml, or 50ml when bigger).

He didn't come off the drugs until he was about 9 months to a year (can't really remember!) but it took a month for them to kick in properly and really have an effect when we started them - then he was much happier and didn't scream as much. Solids was a good experience, but some foods gave him awful wind and made him worse so it helped when we kept a food diary and tracked which he could cope with (generally worse on bananas and anything acidic). We also made sure we always left at least half an hour before letting him sleep after eating a solid meal or he would wake up screaming.

It sounds like you are coping really well - please don't beat yourself up over being stressed out, as you have so much to deal with. It's awful having a child that you can't stop crying but it will get easier. I found remembering to take the three medicines everywhere stressful and I only had three and one child! What did help was that we bought lots of the syringes you use and made up a days supply in advance (or my dh did before going to work) and kept them in a tupperware (they never leaked although they looked like they would) so I could always count them to see if I'd done them or not, and going out only had to take the box and not all the bottles.

Lots of luck with it and hope the solids help and you feel more optimistic soon.

IMHE it starts to get better when they begin to eat solids. This is why I will be weaning DD2 (my second refluxer) ASAP. Hang in there, it sounds to me like you are doing a fantastic job and are over the worst of it now. X

My DS got alot better with weaning and then again at 7 months when he started crawling, I think the core strength they develop helps.

Watch out for food allergies, DS is intollerant to cows milk products and when i cut them all out his reflux improved.

I think just getting through each day with twins and a toddler is a massive acheivement without the added stress of reflux, so just keep taking it one day at a time.

DS had terrible reflux until it eased at 6 months then got a bit worse with solids as I didn't realise which foods would trigger episodes.

I'd go back to the docs if he's not getting better on all those meds.

Also have you tried a dummy? Really helps after a feed. Also do you have bouncy chairs to keep upright after a feed.

Also try not to put them in trousers and keep nappies very loose to ease pressure on the tummy.

The other thing to watch for is overtiredness. It's so easy to confuse the massive meltdown arising from not enough naps with reflux crying. Some babies just don't cope with staying awake for more than 45-60 mins at that age so see if you can get a nap routine going (tough in your situation, I can imagine). But I found a routine really helped me cope.

Cheekydino I tried prefilling the syringes today when my parents took them out and it worked v well apart from with omeprazole, which wouldn't squirt properly so I will have to think about that one. I'll keep a food diary too - we're only on babyrice at the moment, it's so different to my ds, he was bf and we blw'd too but all that is out of the window.
NNAN, I'm praying weaning helps! I so hope you're right and we're over the worst. The last few months have been so awful.
Earwiggo, I think you're right about the allergies thing - I think one is on neocate because of a cows milk protein thing too and I don't suppose they'll just wake up able to tolerate it.
Today (which isn't over) has been hard - a lot of sick, washing, and almost incessant screaming, plus a huge to do at the chemist who wouldn't dispense our stuff as it'd been written Johnston instead of Johnson. Argh! Thank God for wine! I think I should get it on prescription as it's a medical necessity!