Sicky baby and infant gaviscon dosage

[reetgood]

Baby is 4 weeks old and has discomfort post feed, hiccups, lots of sicking up, being woken in sleep by sicking up and discomfort. He’s breastfed. We tried to manage with positioning alone eg keeping upright etc but after a particularly bad night, I cracked and went to the doctors who started us on infant gaviscon. Given mixed reviews I didn’t have great expectations but following first dosage I was really optimistic. He properly slept, without being woken by twitching and discomfort. He then basically slept and fed the rest of the following day, I assume playing catch up.

The doctor prescribed just one dose per day, which we give by syringe. However we ended up giving him his dose much later yesterday, and overnight I’m wondering if he sicked up the dose (I got a shoulder full of something that smelled more like water than vomit).

Can amount of feeding affect efficiency of gaviscon? He fed lots yesterday, and then overnight.

I’m very tempted to just give in his next feed and not wait. On the pack it does say up to 6 times a day? Obv doctors closed today so am just debating with myself whether to go for it or not. I was so optimistic after the first round, it was such a relief to not see him struggle with the discomfort. Am also wondering about reducing the amount of water - 15ml is a lot to get into a baby!

[Alexandra07]

I expressed milk and mixed gaviscon with it. I used around 7.5 ml of breastmilk for one sachet because it was taking ages to give it to my 6 week old. I personally would prefer to give 15 ml breastmilk than water. As you said it's a lot.

I wouldn't worry too much about bringing up the contents. It took 2 days for gaviscon to completely get out of my baby once we stopped using it. I could tell because she started pooing during the night!

I don't think the amount of feeding will change anything. What you consider a lot, may be normal for other babies.

We were told to give her up to 6 sachets per day but it was a lot of work to feed her with the syringe so we gave her at the end 3 sachets during the day.

[reetgood]

@Alexandra07 did you get on with it? I’m second guessing myself madly here, but it seems to make sense to persevere with the 10 days the doctor gave me before considering next (probably futile) option.

He fed a lot in comparison to previous days. My supply responded accordingly and now I’m sat here with engorged boobs and a sleeping baby...I haven’t been expressing because of not wanting to mess with supply until it settles down. Maybe could hand express?

6 doses seems a lot - just one a day is giving him stickier nappies.

[Alexandra07]

We tried it for around 10 days until we used up all sachets. We saw improvement but she was still fussing when on her back. Now we have moved to ranitidine and she is even calmer!

When in gaviscon, she stopped pooing after almost every feed, and no poo during the night (that worked brilliantly for her sleep as we didn't have to change nappies and she wasn't waking up!!). However, she would get rid of everything in a period of 3 hours and there was a lot of poo to clean in each nappy!!!!

You can hand express the small amount you need, 10 ml is very little. And if you feel too full, it's better to remove some milk,not all, to avoid mastitis.

After 10 days check if you can increase the gaviscon doses. Gaviscon is not a proper drug, as it only makes thicker the contents of the stomach, but the next option is an actual drug reducing the acids in the stomach and there are more possible side effects than constipation or diarrhoea gaviscon can cause.
Good luck!!

[reetgood]

Thanks. Just up and feeding after he managed some impressive chucking up of gaviscon thickened milk, four times in a row feels like most of last feed. Not sure whether it was straining to poo that did it, but he’s still pretty upset with the sicking up. It’s been a similar story all day, return of the teary eyed crying (when acid hits?).

Will persevere but was really hoping this would sort, as you say next steps have other repercussions . Maybe I should try milk protein exclusion for me.

[GreyCloudsToday]

We stuck with Gaviscon for our reflux DC. I mixed up a sachet in a sterile bf bottle and then sort of syringed it down the side of my nipple while bf-ing without breaking the latch so that it would mix with the breastmilk. We tried 3 hourly feeds rather than on demand and used a sachet per feed, I don't think 1 sachet per day would do much.