I wanted to make an account to post about this because I found the posts on here so helpful when we were going through our tough time.
Our lovely boy was diagnosed with silent reflux at 10 days old. Things had started off fairly normally but quickly escalated after a few days to him screaming inconsolably for hours a day. It would start like clockwork around 5pm and go for hours. Our midwife really helped to reassure us this long crying wasn't 'normal' newborn crying.
He also made a lot of noise in his sleep when lying down - more than the usual 'dinosaur' groans and moans that a baby makes, but like he was bringing up liquid then swallowing it back down. We didn't see him actually spit up or throw up for months in the end.
We ended up in A&E after he'd spent an evening screaming inconsolably for 5-6 hours straight and they were really helpful. With a baby that small we were seen very quickly and got to speak to a paediatrician who prescribed omeprazole. He mentioned infant gaviscon as well but we didn't try it because of worries about constipation, plus we were so worried/frazzled/exhausted that we wanted to go straight for the proper meds.
Things then got better very quickly (although hours feel long when you're going through that!). Within a few days we saw improvement (although still a few hours of crying a day from around 5pm) and after two weeks he was so much better. I'll list all the other things we were doing at the same time below as it's worth trying all of them but I'm pretty sure it was the omeprazole that did the main work in the end.
> Infacol for every feed
> Holding upright for 20 mins after every feed (even overnight - which was obviously exhausting, really helpful once he was big enough to go in a bouncer to help with that time)
> Probiotics (we used BioGaia)
> Cranial Osteopath appts (we had two, not convinced it did much but wanted to try)
> Different feeding positions trying to keep him as upright as possible
> Slight elevation of sleeping surface (we had him in the purflow that's safe for sleeping and put a folded towel at one end, then when he was comfortable enough we used the snuzpod with the reflux leg on. Technically people say don't elevate sleep surfaces but paediatrician gave us the OK, obviously everyone should decide what they feel comfortable with)
> Pausing to burp during feeds as well as after
> He was also diagnosed with tongue tie early on which we got sorted in those first 10 days as well
> Tummy massage
> I had a c section and was on iron supplements & read that can irritate them so I stopped taking them (but not sure how much it impacted)
> I cut out caffeine & spicy food. Now back on spicy food with no ill effect but stayed off caffeine just in case now I'm used to not having it.
Around 3 months we gradually stopped the infacol and I started to shorten the amount of time we held him upright after feeds & he was OK. Somewhere 3-4 months we stopped the probiotics as well, and I started to wean him off omeprazole around 15 weeks because the symptoms and the noises seemed to be gone & his system was a lot stronger (e.g. he would burp naturally/easily and sometimes without help after feeding).
He was on 6mg/3ml at that point and I went to 2.5ml for 2 weeks, then dropped by 0.5ml every week after that with no obvious ill effects. He's now completely off it as a result and the reflux didn't come back. I can feed him and put him straight down after a quick burp.
We were exclusively breastfeeding during this time & didn't try any formula.
Sorry for the long post but I hope this helps anyone else in the same boat - and whilst all babies are different hopefully will give some hope that a really tough start can (relatively!) quickly resolve.
Huge hugs to anyone going through it as it was the hardest thing I've done & coupled with the hormones/sleep deprivation etc. in those first 12 weeks massively impacted my mood. But when sleep got a bit better I felt so much better again - hopefully you will too!