Help please - Aptamil Pepti 1

[Santatizer]

Hi - my DD is just over ten weeks old but was born 5 weeks early at 35 weeks. She had a couple of days of BF but wouldn't latch due to being premature and I couldn't keep up the expressing schedule required after a horrendous week going in and out of hospital, being transferred etc etc. She has been formula-fed since being around 3 days old. At first all seemed ok but gradually we have had increasing difficulty with her digestion. She gets silent reflux and awful wind at bottom end that causes her pain and we have frequent bouts of crying, quite often with horrendous screaming to the point that she chokes with it. It's awfully distressing and we are struggling tbh. We were prescribed Gaviscon which helps a bit but she feeds so often (every 2-3 hrs) so she can't have it every feed. The GP recommended the Comfort formula, which hasn't really helped at all, maybe a little. We now have Aptamil Pepti 1 & have the first feed this afternoon, which resulted in immediate nasty reflux for over an hour. Can anyone offer any words of advice / share experiences? Massive thanks in advance

I'd go straight back to the GP. Gaviscon is a first line treatment, if that's not working they need better meds to control the reflux.

My little girls was on this when she was a baby. The milk is really thin so can cause reflux to be a lot worse. I used to use cos and gate carobel to thicken her milk and it helped loads. She was hardly ever sick and her reflux seemed to settle down loads. Gaviscon just made her constipated

Aptamil pepti is so thin. Made my babies reflux worse. It's for cows milk protein allergy. I'm surprised they gave it for reflux?

Sorry my mistake - just saw about the other symptoms!

Also gaviscon can cause constipation and painful trapped wind. Did the digestion issues start before or after the gaviscon?

They started before the Gaviscon, so I don't think it's that ... I understand the need to only change one variable at a time to enable a diagnosis but I feel quite stressed at the thought of giving her the Pepti for a three week trial if it is going to make her reflux even worse, with just the Gaviscon (which she can't have every feed) to mitigate it. It doesn't feel fair on her at all. The HV wants us to trial the Pepti for three weeks then challenge back to her previous formula so CMPA can be either excluded or diagnosed. She doesn't think we should do anything additional to treat the reflux over this period because then we would be changing more than one variable so it would be impossible to know whether the Pepti or the reflux treatment had made the difference. Fingers crossed she will transition well to the Pepti now we are doing it gradually & it will help the reflux but I'm worried based on her reaction to the initial pure Pepti feed that her reflux will get worse & nobody will be willing to treat it until we've done our three weeks on pure Pepti...

@dazzlerdo what size teats did you use when using the carobel? At the moment, we've been advised not to use anything additional to help her reflux but in case we can use it soon, any advice on teats would be great. The Aptamil thickener info says to use a medium flow or variflow teat with this but I'm not sure what to get. DD is ten weeks old by birth but only 6 weeks corrected.

[quote Santatizer]@dazzlerdo what size teats did you use when using the carobel? At the moment, we've been advised not to use anything additional to help her reflux but in case we can use it soon, any advice on teats would be great. The Aptamil thickener info says to use a medium flow or variflow teat with this but I'm not sure what to get. DD is ten weeks old by birth but only 6 weeks corrected.[/quote]
We used to use 1.5-2 scoops of carobel in her feeds and use size 3 mam teats. She was 10 weeks when we started giving it her

@Santatizer just thought I'd see how you ate getting on?

My lo is 6 weeks old today and we've started on aptamil pepti 1 from cow and gate

Her symptoms are is that she's not really settled. She was for 2 weeks and then the last 4 she's got progressively worse

We too have to try this milk before they look at reflux

She's sometimes sick - not all the time
Cries as if she is in pain and uncomfortable

I've heard the milk CAN help with reflex ? It might be more gentle on their bellies

I hate that there's no quick diagnosis and it's a trial and error

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