When did your baby's reflux get better?

[Gigi10]

Hi all,

I'm at the "acceptance" phase of being a new mum to a reflux baby haha- I've accepted that I just have to deal with it. Constantly fussy/uncomfortable. Poor weight gain. It's a bit of a vicious cycle as she is slightly better on omeprazole but gets super constipated (on max dose lactulose for this) which in turn makes her too uncomfortable to have her milk properly...so feeding is a mission every time. Been to and fro with HV and GP (both utterly useless sadly), and even private paediatrician and I've just accepted that we will just have to struggle through this until she grows out of it...but I'd love to know when that might be lol. Just looking for a bit of hope? Anyone with similar experiences please tell me when it got better!

Carabel as a milk thickener helped but by this stage ds had been admitted to hospital with weight loss. We got it on prescription. Drs also recommended early weaning which helped a lot too.

Hi, my son had bad reflux and was on 3 different medications at a time, it got better when he started on solids and was sitting up more, it completely went when he was one. That might seem a long time away but it really will fly by 😊

My 9 month old still has reflux although it’s a lot better.. she has good and bad days. Now that she’s sitting up more/always upright it’s a lot better.

Has anyone suggested CMPA?

She's had a CMPA diagnosis. Initially was EBF and once I cut out dairy and soy she was absolutely fine. But then her weight was faltering and they said my supply wasn't adequate so had to supplement with formula and was advised to make the switch. Currently combi feeding because she still wants boob but she's been SO refluxy.

@doggotired when/how did you wean your LO off the meds? My concern is her being on these medications long term :/

We got him off everything by the time he was one, they really do get so much better by the time they are more upright and on solids

6 months here and no signs of her outgrowing it, we are on the maximum dose of omperazole, as much gaviscon as I can get in her and lactulose for the constipation. We have seen some improvements but only when we went up to the highest dose of omperazole. We are now looking at allergies as she isn't getting better, it looks like dairy, soya, eggs, tomatoes and coconut. The meds and diet has changed her from a very upset silent refluxer to a fairly happy spitter. We have had limited help as she has gained weight ok due to mostly silent reflux and lots of comfort eating overnight. We finally have a paeds appointment at the end of the month

DONT GIVE UP, our daughter suffered from silent reflux for a couple of weeks after birth (she was 33w+1 Premie). But I did not sleep, researching everything that has ever been written on reflux until I found a solution.
This was what worked for our daughter. :

1. Formula: change to neocate (hypoalergenic)
2. Breastmilk: Wife cut caffeine, diary and processed meats of diet.
3. Probiotics: For 2 months.

Results: within a day all her pain disappeared and was able to sleep the whole night on her bed for the first time. She was only extremely gassy for 10 days, but this did not cause her pain.

She went from 9th percentile weight to 84% in a month. And height up to 92% from 30th percentile.

She is now 7 months old and back to normal milk, she just needed a couple of months for her digestive system to finish developing.

Doctors, Paediatricians, GPs, Nutritionists... recommended Gaviscon, Omeprazole, lactose free milk, but nothing work. Just made everything worse! We forced our private nutritionist to prescribe the hypoallergenic formula

When she started on solid foods - 5 months ( I know it's not recommended until they are 6 months but I was desperate and she was ready).

Dd had awful silent reflux from birth. She was born really big but list loads of weight. She threw up everything that she drank.- including breast milk. Tried all sorts of formula - Nanny care goats milk formula was the best for her although she still brought a lot of that up. Tried all sorts of medications but they just made her constipated - which was awful. She used to scream in pain when trying to have a poo so I stopped all the medication.

At 5 months she reached out to try and eat some of my lunch so we started baby led weening ( she was independently sitting up etc). She was so much better on solid foods and she ate everything - poor thing must have been starving.

Just to explain our daughter journey a bit better.
-Born Premature (33+1)
-Suspected sepsis, so on large dose of antibiotics. But infection disappeared by day 3
-Out of Neo by day 11
-Wife did not produce enough milk, so we were on Formula milk for premature babies
-By week 2 baby was in extreme pain, with terrible constipation, silent reflux, choking on the reflux. We were going to A&E ever day.(Every doctor was useless)
-We were doing 24h rounds with our baby to keep her in a upright position, she would choke when laid on her back
-By week 3 her reflux got worse, in a reflux episode she passed out and stopped breathing for 1 minute. I could see in the owlet baby monitor how her Sp02 fell drastically and her heart-beat fell to just 80. She remained unconscious for the next hour
-We ended up in hospital overnight, under observations. Doctors gave us Gaviscon + Omeprazole. But we noticed no improvement and my father instincts told me this was the wrong solution.
-By week 4 we changed the formula to Neocate and wife started the special diet. All the baby pain and reflux went away overnight. She had her first night sleep in her life. (Your GP will give you Neocate formula for free, if prescribed by a nutritionist)
-By month 2, wife stopped the diet, but continued to breastfeed with no impact in the baby
-By Month 6 we started the switch to normal formula. (adding normal formula on her Neocate) We finished the switch within 2 weeks. Only side effect was a lot of Poo. But it caused her no discomfort and she enjoys the normal formula (Aptamil) much more!
Since we made the change she has been a happy baby and hitting all the milestones.
-Oh and since we made the change all her colic's stopped, so we stopped giving her Infacol, colicrelief... and all that stuff.

My understanding is that Reflux is a SYMPTOM of a digestive problem, and giving your baby gaviscon and omeprazole does not treat the problem.. It only has relative success hiding the symptoms until the baby "grows out of it". But allowing your baby to suffer for 6-12 months is just cruel.

Hi
I feel I need to share with every parent what I have learnt over the past 13 months.

My little boys reflux was so so bad he was put on everything from omeprazole, lansoprazole domperidone gaviscon.
Aptamil comfort milk
Hipp combiotic
Hipp anti reflux
Aptamil pepti 1
Sma alfamino
Neocate junior
Kendamill
Nanny care.

As you can see from above it’s been a rollercoaster of a journey with my son.

He also had tongue tie which was cut, still things didn’t get any better!

No medication worked infact it made things worse the omeprazole would bloat him he would be up screaming in pain all night, he passed out with reflux on one occasion. We have spent numerous nights in hospital. He also got a food aversion so wouldn’t eat anything would often choke and vomit with food.
On one visit to the hospital I was told to not give him any bottles so he would eventually eat!! Utterly disgusted in this type of advice!!

He had barium swallow tests he had a camera down his throat all came back normal!

After realising the drs couldn’t do anything for me, I stated to to look into what is causing his reflux he was 12 months now and the reflux worse than ever he would be up every 15 mins of a night, he was dairy free for almost 9 months with no improvement, constantly constipated and on movicol for the constipation.

I started to look into what is in the formulas as that’s all he was consuming and watch work shops from reflux specialists such as rockerbyereflux and the baby reflux lady on Instagram.

I watched one work shop that mentioned maltodextrin in formulas which lots of baby’s struggle to digest and it gives them extreme wind and bloat particularly when they are still which was the case with my son he would be fine of a day and come night time he would be crippled with pain and gas and would be crawling all over the bed to the point I would rock him most nights all night!!!

Also after a long walk in the pram he became physically in pain and discomfort after once again staying still!

I was so fed up of being told he will grow out of it.... but when? Why are drs happy to let these little delicate humans suffer so much and prescribe them medication after medication without looking at the route cause, what is causing this symptom of reflux!

As adults we get a reaction if we consume something so we make sure we don’t consume it again,
But baby’s don’t have this choice.

Exhausted wasn’t even the word! I was surviving on zero sleep for over a year!!

So I stated to look at what was in all his formulas that he has been on to this point and realised that they all had maltodextrin in even neocate!!!

So at this point I searched for a formula that didn’t contain it and found kendamill although this was dairy and my son had a suspected cmpa he as been dairy free for 9 months with zero improvement. I made the decision to change him, we saw a massive improvement with regards to the wind and gas of an evening and he no longer needed movicol to go the toilet! So I knew he had a issue digesting maltodextrin. However, he seemed to have heart burn of an evening and I knew this as if I gave him a shot of gaviscon it would help. So I knew the cows milk is clearly a little too difficult to digest. So I then searched goats milk without maltodextrin and came across nanny care, wow is all I can say!

My son went from being up every 15 minutes all through the night in pain to waking once for a bottle. I cannot believe it.

I have been through such a tough time with my son and felt absolutely helpless with his discomfort and not being able to help and no one being able to help .....but mums always know best.

I just felt like I wanted to share my journey as if it can help other ppl I will be so happy!

Not enough is highlighted about what goes in baby’s formulas and I was always led to believe all the super market formulas where the same!! How wrong I was!!

Hope this post helps someone or even gives you a little hope.

It’s took us 13 months and finally I feel like we are getting somewhere.

If you don’t agree with anything I have done please don’t comment back I’m not trying to be a dr in anyway I just want to share my journey in the hope it can point other mums who feel helpless in the right direction.

We had a similar experience with the constipation. When our daughter was 0 to 1 month old she had terrible constipation that made her scream of pain when pooing. When we changed her to neocate she still didn't want to poo (we believe it was because she was traumatized) so we decided to stick with neocate, but used windi every day to free up the gas and glycerin suppositories to force her to poo every 2 days (to make sure the poo didn't go hard). After 3 weeks her fear of pooing went away and we stopped the above. Because neocate was so gente on the stomach, she only pooed every 2 to 3 days. Non of what we did was recommended by doctors, but the NHS is completely clueless on what to do with babies with reflux.

Couldn’t agree qith you more!

Nhs have no clue you have to just do your own research and you know your baby best!

I’m happy to say Leo is not on any medication now for either reflux or constipation :)

Hi OP. My baby is now 5 months old and I’ve started to see an improvement in the last month or so. He’s still sick after most feeds, but it’s not as much and he’s a lot better at swallowing it back down (which is obviously not ideal, but at least less messy). He is rarely sick between feeds now, which he used to be often. We get lots of days now where he’s only sick 5/6 times (we used to have days where he would be sick as much as 30 times).

Once we start weaning at 6 months I’m hoping to start reducing his omeprazole (he’s currently on 12mg per day, luckily it hasn’t made him constipated).

We saw an improvement when I started feeding DS with him sat more upright in my arms rather than reclining (adults don't eat lying down so it made sense to us). He was bottle fed.
We weaned him at 4 and a half months -but very slowly made the change from milk only to solids. It got better really quickly.