VERY sicky six week old -- any advice?

[StripeyOrangeTrousers]

My six week old DD is bringing up milk after pretty much every feed, often multiple times and in seemingly massive quantities. Sometimes it's obviously milk that's just gone down and come straight back up; other times it's more like vomit. She doesn't seem to be in distress and is gaining weight. I know I'm not supposed to worry as long as she seems healthy, but I seem to be spending most of my time either feeding or doing laundry and I'm ready to try anything that might help.

I do try to keep her upright but often just the action of moving her into a more upright position after a feed triggers a waterfall. I've also raised the head end of her cot but she continues to be sick in her sleep. This morning my partner thought the washing machine had broken and we both nearly wept (luckily it was just a fuse that had gone). Any advice from others who've experienced this problem would be very much appreciated!

Sounds like reflux. You're better off popping her to your GP.

What formula you using?

Oops, should have said -- we're EBF.

I do wonder if it's reflux but I don't really want to medicate her as long as she's not uncomfortable.

If she's a 'happy sicker' then it's probably just normal posseting - DD used to upchuck every feed too. It's a laundry problem not a medical one.

If you're EBF then look on the kellymom site about oversupply - it might help to see if that is a possible problem. If she's a happy chucker though, you'll probably just have to put muslins everywhere . She'll get better as she gets older as well.

I had happy chucker twins You get used to the washing and less diligent about changing clothes that are just a bit damp.

If you dot want to medicate (I didn't either), my tips are:

• Waterproof mattress protector
• Waterproof duvet and pillow covers (or decide to replace them all every 6 weeks or so for the next 6 months or so!). Google incontinence bedding an you'll get adult bed sized duvet protectors etc.

-Thick towel under baby and you wherever you feed

• Muslins everywhere
• Use a flexible tommy tippee scoop bib with a fabric bib over the top to catch the worst of it
• Stuff a muslin in your cleavage before every feed - it gets demoralising when your cleavage fills up for the third time in a day
• Get your husband into the habit of loading, unloading and hanging a load of washing every night. You can then keep on top of anything extra in the day but you'll be kept 'functional' by that daily load
• try feeding with baby sat up (might have to wait a few weeks more). If you sit bolt upright on an upright chair and but baby on your knee, straddling your thigh. S/he can then feed sat up facing you.

Strangely, I found that feeding mine lying down and then not moving them helped. If I even scooted them across the bed a bit, the milk would come back, but if I just extracted myself and left the babies where I'd fed them, they were often not sick for an hour or so.

You're doing a fabulous job under difficult circumstances. Reflux makes everything harder, and you have to measure the worry and faff of medicating against the endless washing of people, clothes and bedding.

I hope it eases soon. With mine, the sick stopped overnight when they were 7 months old. I am guessing it was related to them establishing solids, but who knows!

As long as baby is happy (and it's not projectile, funny coloured) alert when awake and plenty of wet/dirty nappies its ok.
We went through this with DD and it nearly drove me insane. She doesn't seem to suffer with it at all but until she was 6mo she would just throw up everywhere. Didnt find anything helped, sorry.
She is now much better (7mo) but still if I feed her then rus off somewhere she will be sick. There's been plenty of times halfway round the supermarket I've had to find staff and a wet floor sign

Sympathy! Dc2 is a happy puker and its projectile! I fretted until I read somewhere 'you don't have medical problem, you have a laundry problem'. And I have a huge laundry problem but oh well. This shall pass

Some excellent advice above for muslin cloths and bibs all the time. I always put a bib over the straps in the car seat to try help keep th slightly cleaner!

On the world stores website, the mattresses part, they sell hippy chick waterproof mattress protectors the flat ones, I bought loads they are about £5 each the cot bed size, great for under the baby in bed. They are soft cotton and wash and tumble dry easily.

I always have a muslin over my arm when carrying and face the baby away from you once they have enough head control, that way they will be sick on the floor rather than down your front! Obviously only helpful with washable floors not carpet! It is much easier to wipe a floor than wash more clothes.

Oh God yes, the bra-fillers. DD always used to do these at night, for some reason - feed-feed-feed then DUMP the whole lot back where it came from!

Thanks, everyone, for all the tips and reassurance. It's amazing how often I still manage to get caught without a protective muslin -- it's almost as if DD can sense it and chooses her moment! Lucky for her she's so cute.

And if you need a laugh - dc2 always manages to puke in my lap. Out and about so it looks like I've wet myself!

Yeah, all of the above. We outgrew it on solids though mine can still puke in response to colds and coughing...

It passes, in the meantime you can aim it at visitors you dislike.

Just to add a coda to this thread in case it's helpful to anyone: around midnight on New Year's Eve, DD suddenly started projectile vomiting. She seemed well and happy otherwise but didn't have a wet nappy all night and clearly wasn't keeping anything down so we went to our local A&E (the Royal London). DD was diagnosed with pyloric stenosis and operated on the next day. The whole experience was really stressful, but the medical staff were fantastic and DD was a little trooper. She's now much better and while she still spits up she's less sicky than she was. I didn't know that PS could appear quite suddenly there wasn't a gradual transition to projectile vomiting but apparently it's possible. She was also quite late to present with it at nearly 9 weeks but that's probably because she was born three weeks early.
Oh and our washing machine did pack it in, just before the serious vomming started. But now we have a better one to deal with the bodily fluids

Sorry it turned out to be pyloric stenosis stripey but I'm pleased everything has gone well, and well done you for being so on the ball. It can be tricky with a very sicky baby to know what is "normal" and what isn't. DS was very sicky in the early months, and I panicked about him having pyloric stenosis, as my friend's DS had it, and my uncle had it, and it is most common in first born boys. The paediatrician wheeled out the old "laundry problem" line too In his case it was just that he was prem and more prone to that kind of thing.

I hope your DD continues to be a little trooper - and yay for new washing machine!