Reflux/constant crying PLEASE HELP :(

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be aware LONG post but please read! I'm
Trying to include as much info as I can and background info so I'm not drip feeding

Hi everyone
I'm currently typing this as I try and survive yet another sleepless night. I am a walking zombie and I desperately need help/advice off those of you who have been here before.

My son is 10 weeks old. Born at 37 weeks by c-section because I had pre eclampsia and he was breech. Completely formula fed, no breast feeding at all as I couldn't. As of right now we are on cow & gate first infant milk. He is on omeprazole for reflux and we use gripe water too. We use MAM anti colic bottles.

So soon as he was straight onto the bottle on C&G. From the very beginning he literally threw up loads after every bottle. He also cried/screamed when lay flat on his back in his next to me crib or Moses basket and would also be sick or being up clear liquid (which I have been told by HV is acid?) (but doesn't cry in pram - he loves his pram - but is still sometimes sick or bringing up liquid). He will mostly only settle in our arms.
HV very confused as she said this sounds like reflux and heartburn (when he lies down) HOWEVER he is still putting on weight so no concerns there. Apparently reflux babies lose weight?

HV recommends C&G reflux milk. Sickness stops almost completely but the screaming when lying down continues to get worse.

So as advised off HV I go to GP and ask for infant gaviscon - try this, made him really constipated which was absolutely awful to watch him scream in agony and not poo for 3 days so we came off it as I would rather him be sick than constipated. So the reflux milk is thick but the gaviscon makes it even thicker.

Back to GP we go. We are given omeprezole which worked wonders and he finally started to (sometimes) settle on his back in next to me crib and Moses basket. It was still a work of art getting him in there without him realising he'd been put down but we were getting somewhere.

Eventually he gets constipated again and it was awful. Back to GP who said maybe it's too much being on omeprazole AND reflux milk as it's so thick. So she suggested we go back on the normal milk and continue work omeprazole.

That brings me to now. My son has now gone back to being sick after every single bottle and is once again crying when lay on his back. However it's not screaming it's more like that low level whining. DP thinks he now just wants to be in our arms at all times. During the day I'll put him in the Moses basket so I can go for a wee, before my backside is even on the downstairs toilet he is crying. The second I pick him up he settles. He also screams when having his nappy changed or getting dressed.

When his next to me crib at night I have put it on a slant as advised by GP to help with reflux. This has got steeper as the weeks
Have gone on - if I incline the thing any more he will be bloody stood up. We are always
Woken around 2am by him crying and he makes gargling sounds also like his throat is full of fluid - HV said this is acid but I'm worried something worse. GP listened to chest/Lungs and all fine.

Please help me - is it me? Am I doing something wrong? Is it the brand of milk? Why does he cry every evening from tea time onwards? Why is it a work of art getting him
To sleep? Why does he only want to sleep on me? He is a grumpy baby - he only smiles at me once a day and I feel like the worst mum in the world. Surely he should be thriving more and not spending his little life constipated or being sick or crying 😢

He is absolutely gorgeous and I love him to pieces. I know he loves me because he stares into my Eyes when he's feeding and squeezes my finger 😢 I write this as I'm
Sat on the sofa with him asleep in my arms so he can sleep and so dp can sleep as he has to be up at 5am for work. It's the same rigmarole every single night. Couple of
Hours sleep then I'm up and won't get any
More sleep now. I'm so dangerously tired 😴

Sorry I want to add as well - I want him
to sleep in his next to me crib. I refuse to to
down the road of having him in our bed - several friends have suggested this. I jut don’t feel safe doing that

Hi OP. I am currently in a similar situation to you with my 6 week old. Ask your GP if they can assess your child for pyloric stenosis. Pyloric stenosis is a narrowing of the pylorus, the opening from the stomach, into the small intestine. This type of blockage is also referred to as a gastric outlet obstruction. Normally, food passes easily from the stomach into the duodenum through a valve called the pylorus. My Gp said this often missed 99.9% of the time. Definitely worth investigating. Google it and look up the systems in babies. I've copied it below for you just in case.

1	Vomiting after feeding. The baby may vomit forcefully, ejecting breast milk or formula up to several feet away (projectile vomiting). ...
2	Persistent hunger. Babies who have pyloric stenosis often want to eat soon after vomiting.
3	Stomach contractions. ...
4	Dehydration. ...
5	Changes in bowel movements. ...
6	Weight problems

I've been there just awful, you feel helpless. We had ranitidine which I think is similar to omperzole (sp?) and gaviscon. Could not give lots of gaviscon as it constipated him. I was breast feeding so formula wasn't an issue. Tilted cot helped as did keeping upright after food but the main thing was cutting dairy from my diet leading to a cmpa diagnosis, it was a combination of the above that settled him.

Wow thanks for replies already!

i didn’t think about cmpa- do you think my son could have that? Now he’s not constipated his nappies are explosive and so runny. He is very congested but I was told that was because he was a c section delivery?

Girl my daughter is 3 soon and il be honest ignore all the milk recommendations as it doesn’t change anything! We switched loads and she was in constant pain at night and wouldn’t sleep. It was awful.
simple advice- gaviscon for babies sachets in milk, sit up right with bottles and don’t shake just swill the mixuire
if in pain bounce on knee this really gets the bubbles out
also water as heartburn is so painful
I swear by gaviscon
i weaned my baby onto food from 4 months old as we just couldn’t cope anymore haha

He will be super clingy my daughter was same as they are in pain poor mites
my dd struggled to burp and still does to this day she’s more of a windy girl
she would wake up 5-7 times a night
I slept three hours with her during day as she seemed better then around 12-3

also we tried peptac without milk protein and about 928292 brands of milk and different types of thickness , i don’t think it makes a difference tbh.
my friends baby was the same and gaviscon sachets in bottle eased it
he had soya milk instead
we tried but my dd had mucus in her poop so that was a no go
good luck!

Why does he cry every evening from tea time onwards? Why is it a work of art getting him
To sleep? Why does he only want to sleep on me?

Some of this is completely normal for a newborn anyway OP and may not be linked to the other problems. Lots of babies (probably most) need help going to sleep and staying asleep and would rather sleep on us. And lots of babies have long periods of crying in the evenings. Your baby is only 7 weeks old adjusted, give it time.

As for the rest, I completely understand as I've been there too. Hospital stays, back and forth to the GP, formula switches, non-stop crying. My baby is now five months old and has finally stopped screaming all the time and is mostly a happy chap. He's been on Omeprazole since one month old and been dairy free (breastfed as he wouldn't take the prescribed formula) since then too. And yet I honestly couldn't say whether it was those things that helped or just time and his gut maturing. Mine had strong antibiotics when he was born due to complications which I'm sure upset his tummy.

I think with babies a lot of it is giving it time and knowing they won't be like that forever, but it's so so hard when you're in the thick of it. It's only the last few weeks mine has cheered up. Don't ask about sleep though as that's still terrible and has actually got worse... 😁

OP, this sounds just like my DD (now 15 months) who has CMPA. C-section babies do have elevated risk for CMPA, especially if formula-fed within their first 7 days, and especially if mum had to take antibiotics in pregnancy (which many pregnant women have to do due to UTIs, including me). This is borne out in research but not commonly recognised in practice; clinicians don’t tend to join those dots unless it’s a specialist area of interest for them.

Anyway, I’d had to give DD formula top-ups from Day 2 while we were still in hospital, and after a few weeks at home (still being topped up with formula) she developed symptoms, and then it took another six weeks, including treatment for reflux (which she also had), to have the CMPA confirmed. She had been gaining weight the whole time like your DS; she was small but tracking her centile growth curve.

CMPA was all but confirmed after I’d tried EBF for a whole weekend after being dairy-free - my supply was not enough to EBF full time, but one Friday things were bad enough to call 111, and the doctor advised me to give EBF a go over the weekend. The CMPA was clinically confirmed after trying various hydrolysed formulas, and finding she was only ok on the pure amino acid formula. Poor kid was so allergic to the protein that she was still in pain and vomiting/dodgy nappies even on the hydrolysed formulas.

If you have a decent financial situation, it might be worth purchasing some of the extensively hydrolysed or amino acid formulas yourself online and trying them to see how your DS responds. DD’s symptoms were SO bad I couldn’t wait for all the back and forth with our GP, so I bought some different EHFs myself to start with, and eventually the AAF. (I’m not on a high salary but for me it was worth the expense as a trade-off to cut down all the waiting to try different things and find what worked for her.) Then the GP prescribed the AAF, Neocate and all was well.

Your local CCG will have prescribing guidelines for specialist formulas - if you want assistance navigating them, feel free to DM and let me know your area, and I’ll happily look up the guidelines. I’m a health professional myself - although no longer clinical, and only ever worked with adults when I was.

Last thing - I’m sorry you’re having to go through this. I’ll never forget how dark that time was because of the constant worry and knowing the agony that DD was very clearly in. Noise-cancelling headphones or earplugs really helped me be present for her when she was in a bad way. The screaming was unspeakably distressing for me, because it was definitely screams of pain and not just normal baby crying. I also did lots and lots of babywearing in those weeks, so I could be a source of constant comfort for her, which definitely helped. If you don’t have a carrier already, it might be worth looking into getting one. The Ergobaby Embrace was our at-home carrier as it was comfortable enough for me to wear basically all day.

Even if it’s not CMPA, even if it’s something else, it will take time to confirm and treat. In the meantime, until you get the right treatment for him, you have to do whatever you can to help yourself to be able to comfort your DS. It’s so, so hard to deal with, and you basically have to find ways of fortifying yourself to deal with it. I hope it all works out ok for you.

HUGE sympathies. My first was like this. He was (seemingly) constantly in pain, but I was breastfeeding so going dairy free helped, but obvs that won't help here.

There is a valve in their stomach which isn't mature until c. 14 weeks (acc to my MW!) and he definitely started settling better then, and gradually improved. Weaning also was a game changer. I also used to just put him in a sling because he would only settle upright on me. I went to cranial osteopathy, baby massage, baby yoga trying to find the holy grail of a calm baby......! It is exhausting, but it WILL improve. Just hang in there and try and enjoy the bits when he is calm - I know it feels endless and relentless, but it will get better.

(And suddenly your baby is 6ft 4 and about to start A levels, and it feels like only yesterday you were lying on your bed, crying with exhaustion whilst the baby screamed and screamed and you thought you were the worst mother because your baby was so unhappy and cried all the time.....)

Big hugs OP, this is so hard. My DS was like this. Put on weight fine, was feeding 20+ times a day at the beginning because he was throwing up 50-80 times a day. It was a nightmare. The sphincter at the top of his stomach wasn't fully formed so it was true reflux. We were on ranitidine (similar to omeprazole) after giving up on the gaviscon. Gaviscon sits on top of the acid in the stomach and makes it heavier. Ranitidine is better at neutralising. It becomes a bit of a vicious circle as their oesophagus will be sore from all the vomiting.
Other than the ranitidine things that worked for us were using a car seat for naps in the daytime (HV said to do this), always being inclined, never ever flat. And to be honest a good few months of my husband sitting up with him from 8pm til midnight or so while I went to bed, and then me watching endless episodes of the West Wing with him sleeping upright on me from midnight til morning. It was shit quite frankly and nearly broke me.
BUT, then he hit 7-8 months old and within a week we went from 70-80 vomits per day to about 20, then the following week none. I guess the sphincter finally formed.
And then all was good! And now he's a giant 14 year old about to start GCSEs and I promise you those first months are a distant memory and you will sleep again.
Hang in there, it's very hard.

PS should also have said: we weaned early, I don't know if this was a good idea in hindsight, it just meant he threw up food instead of milk. And for us it made zero difference breastfeeding vs normal formula vs formula specific for reflux babies. It was very much a physical thing rather than any kind of intolerance. We tried it all.

Oh my gosh im overwhelmed with all your responses at this time in the morning! Well I tried to take us back to bed earlier after his bottle and changing his nappy twice in one hour (both very loose) and we’re back downstairs again because he’s crying 😢 I’ve made him another bottle because maybe he’s hungry, changed his dirty nappy AGAIN, and he’s drank one ounce and fallen asleep on me! Looks like this is me for the rest of the night now :( I’m sick of going up and down stairs

I have literally been awake since 2.30 with him. He didn’t fall asleep till midnight. How am I supposed to carry on like this? Whenever I try and put him down I get about 10 mins before he’s crying again

I was on anti biotics in pregnancy for UTI’s and also blood pressure medication at the end when I found out I had pre eclampsia.
i didn’t know these things could effect a baby’s feeding! He’s also just come off amoxicillin for a chest infection. I’m honestly at my whits end. Im sick of changing his milk and trying different things because all it does is make him worse and upset him more :( since we changed his milk again he has a dirty nappy nearly every hour and it’s so funny. Whereas before it was just two dirty nappies a day!!!! How can that be? Plus all the gargling and Jurassic park noises he makes like he’s in so much pain I can’t ignore him :( we are at the gp on Tuesday for her to check my
blood pressure, he will be coming with me as he comes everywhere with me, do I ask for him to be tested for cows milk allergy?

**runny not funny 😁

I would definitely discuss that possibility with your GP. It really is hideous, and feels endless while you are in the midst of adjusting to being a new mother anyway.....but, but, but...it will improve.

I've just remembered...one of the only places he wouldn't cry was in the supermarket! We used to put him in the baby cradle bit of the big trolley and he would be so transfixed by the lights on the ceiling and things that he woukd zone out. DH spent a lot of early weeks going very slowly round the supermarket in the evening so I coukd grab even an hour of precious sleep.

exactly same with my dd guzzling milk to get rid of the reflux then hours later worse! Keep him upright and really pester doctors

We had this exactly the same, go back to the reflux milk if it worked with the omeprazol (truly amazing stuff, can they try upping the dose we had to do that a few times). We had ours on both and also used to give lactulose daily to sort out the constipation. Wedgehogs are good for night, you slip it under his mattress and it will keep him raised. I also used to feed him in a feeding pillow then leave him in it to dose for half hour after feeds (I had twins and couldn't constantly carry both upright). We also started weaning at 5 months and it did help but honestly the first year was really tough till it settled down (ours were born at 26 weeks though so guts not properly developed). It will get better I promise xx

wedgehog.co.uk/?cmp_id=10331743417&adg_id=105890427034&kwd=reflux%20pillow&device=m&gclid=CjwKCAjwjtOTBhAvEiwASG4bCA7c1YKQDMFuKwAKeqBiHmsZiPXQ854IOs7vlDussS-UjuKHnkrdAhoCCHoQAvD_BwE

Guys after ready all your messages, I'm seriously starting to think my ds has cmpa. I don't know if his reflux is caused by that or if he would have that anyway. I am at the gp on Tuesday and my plan is to telll her all da symptoms and ask for special milk - if she says no I'm going to do what a precious poster has said and get one myself and if it works go back to the gp and tell her. His symptoms are:
-Random patches of dry skin/eczema like rash
-reflux
-vomiting

-constipation & diarrhoea (he's suffered with both)
-VERY congested - has been since he was born
-dry cough
-horrible griping noises especially when asleep (sounds like something from Jurassic park!)

-constant crying in the evenings

Do you all think this is a good idea? I'm at my whits end and I'm just sat holding ds and I want to cry for him :( I just want him to be ok. All his little life he's suffered with one thing or another and something needs to change.

DTs had reflux of prematurity, the sphincter muscle at the top of the stomach isn't formed.

They were on ranitidine (now replaced by omeprazole), gaviscon and infacol. They got constipated on the gaviscon and diarreah on the infcaol alone so together they balanced out.

What is the omeprazole dose and when are you giving it? make sure you swirl the bottles not shake, pre-made can be worse for refluxers as it's thinners, powder is thicker. Don't chop and change it's worse for them.

I wouldn't jump straight to CMPA.

I had to keep them upright for 45 mins after every feed, cot wedges, tilt the bassinets in the pram.

He's only ten weeks, they can just cry for no reason in the evening, it's what they do. 'colic' which basically translates as crying for no reason.

I had to wean at 5 months on advice of the paeds but tbh it didnt really help until they were walking and more upright during the day,

Hey OP - any eczema or eczema-like rash, as well as respiratory symptoms, are definitely relevant, because atopic symptoms are very closely linked with CMPA. It sounds like it’s worth investigating further. He sounds just like my DD was, but of course you need a doctor to make the call.

I found that my GP was willing to listen after things had got so bad that I’d called 111 for advice a second time. The call handler heard DD’s crying, and put us down as urgent for a call-back, and then the 111 GP agreed it sounded like screams of pain, not just normal crying, so that was all in the notes (as well as all the other stuff I talked to the 111 GP about, which was what led him to conclude we needed to treat her as though she had CMPA and see what happened).

So please do call 111 for advice if things are really bad while you wait to see your GP. I know they get a bad press, but my experience was that they’re quite good with helping parents of sick infants!

update!!!

hey everyone

today go listened my my concerns and watched videos on my phone of ds making painful griping noises etc. He said his three main concerns were the griping, sickness and loose nappies. He has given me a weeks worth of aptamil pepti 1 to try.

so he has had two bottles of this since getting back from the gp and the sickness is just as bad if not worse :( he’s just crying out in pain And nothing will settle him! I’m stood in the kitchen crying as my dp is cuddling him in the other room, it’s absolutely breaking my heart seeing my boy like this :(

has anyone had experience with this milk ? If so did you have these side effects? Gp said it will take a few days for him to get used to it as it’s a new milk but I don’t want my boy going through this :(

we are going to attempt our usual bedtime routine of a warm bath, lights on with star projector and Ewan the dream sheep till he nods off but something tells me I’m in for a long night :( I’ve got my red bull at the ready

Sorry so many spelling mistakes I’m just so tired