My 18 week baby is currently exclusively breast fed. He has severe reflux which landed him in NICU on day 3 of his life. He has been on the maximum dose of ranitadine and lansoprazole for most of his life and they mostly seem to be working. He is a lot less sick than he was but his weight gain is slightly slowing down. He has almost doubled his birth weight. I feed him every 3 hours during the day and every 3 or 4 at night. He pulls off during feeds quite a lot and seems unsettled and in pain or unsatisfied. He only feeds for about 10/15 minutes each time from both sides.
This week he was diagnosed with eczema and given cream to help which has improved the situation. He has also had a couple of weeks of suddenly doing 8 dirty nappies through day and night rather than his usual one a day. GP said that he might also have Cow's Milk Protein Allergy and that I should go dairy and soya free to see if it helps.
We also saw our consultant this week who agreed with possible CMPA diagnosis but also suggested early weaning. She is referring us to a dietician but that won't come through for weeks.
The consultant suggested I give DS toast, banana, avocado, potato but didn't give any further guidance. Since the appointment I have been reading about early weaning and all the advice seems to be NOT to give toast or anything with gluten until 6 months which makes me a bit doubtful about how good the consultant's advice was.
My plan is to try banana for 3 days to see how it goes. He ate a few spoonfuls just now and seemed to quite enjoy it.
My questions are
- whether I need to puree things or just mash them?
- is toast ok as the consultant suggests?
- should I just try one 'meal' a day to start with?
- does anyone have useful weblinks to guide me with early weaning since hospital haven't given me any real instructions?
- does anyone have useful links to Facebook groups on this topic especially early weaning in combination with possible CPMA?
- did anyone's baby get diagnosed with reflux when it actually turned out to be CMPA? I am now wondering whether he actually has reflux at all...
Trying to cope with me going dairy free and also doing early weaning feels like a lot to cope with in one week so any guidance would be much appreciated. Thank you!