Help! - giving infant gaviscon to a bottle-refusing breastfed baby without trauma - how?!

[diyqueen]

My dd's been prescribed infant gaviscon for reflux and when I can get it down her it really does seem to help, but I'm finding it really difficult to get into her and I seem to be forcing it down her while she screams in terror which makes me feel dreadful and I'm on the verge of giving up with it. She's breastfed and won't even let a bottle teat between her lips, won't slurp it off a spoon and I don't just want to tip it in for fear of her choking on it, and syringing it into her cheek works but she'll tolerate at most 1 or 2mls dripped in really,really slowly and then will just scream and stiffen her little body trying to escape. She will reluctantly continue to swallow it as a kind of reflex between screams but it feels like torturing her. 15ml just seems like so much liquid to get into her. Trying to give it half way through a feed starts off better but then just degenerates into screaming again and puts her off the rest of her feed. Has anyone got any tips? Everything else I read just seems to say that their baby takes it off a spoon/bottle with no mention of any difficulties, so what am I doing wrong?

I used to mix it up in a small sterile bottle and syringe it in during feeds, sort of from the side, latching him off with a little finger and trying to squirt before he noticed - he wouldn't take it from the bottle itself. I used to make it up more concentrated than the sachets suggested so that I didn't have to get as much in - I figured it was being diluted by my milk anyway. I don't think you're doing anything wrong - I think you just have a baby, like I did, who loves boob and won't tolerate anything else!

Are you expressing at all? I found that after 6-8 weeks if I expressed the 10pm ish feed, I could add Gaviscon to that bottle and DH gave it (it took a while to get DS used to it) and at least I knew that one feed was going to stay down....

Is she putting on weight well?
Good luck - I know how awful it can be. When DS started sitting up and eating solids our life improved dramatically!

I didn't mix it with 15ml of water - I tried it in 5ml so was getting a bit more into her. I figured if I was feeding her afterwards it would be diluted by that! Also used a syringe but had exactly the same problem. I was reluctant to try it mixed in EBF more than twice as I was afraid it would put her off a bottle forever! (She was a bottle refuser too) DD saw a consultant in the end who said not to bother & that it would improve in time.

I used to mix the Gaviscon with 15 ml of breastmilk instead of water - then she used to suck it down from the syringe no problem. Also often gave it straight after a feed rather than before when she was really hungry. Things improved gradually as she got older.

My BF counsellor told me it should be mixed with breast milk and try to syringe in as smelly suggests, or you could try a pipette like the infacol kind?

pipe to a nipple shield?

i mixed it with 5ml water and 10ml ebm and that meant that once I had prised ds lips apart he recognised the taste and he would take it in a bottle.

I only used gaviscon for 3 days though because I also gave up dairy and that stopped the acid reflux. I had read that it would take about 2 weeks to make a a difference but it was gone within 3 days!

DS is still a chucker though, albeit a happy one. He is gaining VVVVV well so I dont worry about it. As I have only given up milk and cream I dont know if giving up everything with cows milk protein would make a difference or if he is just a greedy guzzler with eyes bigger than his tummy (milk is dribbling out of the side of his mouth as i type!)

I syringed it in and dd screamed, then I bf again to calm her. At the time it seemed tough but looking back it was such a short time. It was traumatic each time but tastes discusting so I just wanted to get it in her ASAP so I could bf her a bit more then she would settle.

Once dd was on solids it calmed down a lot and she came off the gaviscon. I brought in solids earlier than HV said (just over 4 months) but dd loved it and was far happier for it.

I used syringe and breast milk but it was just too traumatic. I asked the doctor to move her onto ranitidine which helped a lot.

I frequently link to think but it's really useful:

www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2011/05/cause-of-your-babys-refluxwindcolic.html

I also went down the dairy route but had to remove every trace of CMP. Worked a treat, and he was a different child within a fortnight, but he was also tongue tied so had both things going on. Milk dribbling out of mouth is a sign...

Just some other options because while IG works well for controlling symptoms in a lot of babies, it may be that the cause is something that can be dealt with at source.

Hi I used a syringe for expressed bm mix and he took it faaaar easier than with water BUT when he went to double dose at 10lb I found it made him really constipated which caused mire probs than the reflux, so stopped & didn't notice any difference....
I also persevered with s bottle but found he'd only tale it warm...

Oh yes, forgot the painful constipation IG caused. It was like pooing peanut butter, poor little dd!

Thanks for all the suggestions - will try some of these. I've started just giving it to her once or twice a day if she seems uncomfortable, and trying to keep her upright as much as possible instead, which makes it a bit more manageable.