Newborn reflux worsening, struggling to sleep on back, any tips?

[LondonMumo23]

I’m wondering if anyone can offer any guidance/reassurance on reflux.

we just welcomed our second son into the world on 9 Feb. He’s doing great and feeding well.

Our first (now 2.5 yo) experienced really bad silent reflux to the ppint that he would scream in discomfort if you put him on his back for a few minutes and he developed an aversion to my breast because of the silent reflux that would follow. It was awful - I ended up holding him most of the night for months and got really ill from sleep deprivation, we put him on Omeprozole which didn’t really help and made him mega constipated, and he developed really bad sleep habits I now realise because of how we handled it all.

new son has been so far feeding far better,’has had some reflux - one large reflux sometimes two in a 24 hour period, which isn’t the end of the world, and so far was sleeping well on his back even if only for an hour or two, sometimes the occasional 3 hour chunk already. He’s had really painful gas so we’ve been using infacol for that for about a week.

however in the last couple of days he’s had real trouble sleeping on his back, almost gargling his reflux, sometimes constantly heaving (even if he’s not sick) and most of the time starting crying and needing to be picked up and held while he sleeps.

I really don’t want to do gaviscon or omeprozole again and want to ride it out but I got mentally quite unwell from sleep deprivation last time and while my husband is helping a bit more this time I can’t see it being sustainable to hold him when he’s sleeping till he’s 12 weeks and this has all passed.

is there anything else we can/should do? He sometimes sleeps even if heaving and gargling - should we jsut let him do this even if it sounds really uncomfortable for him? Might this improve before 12 weeks? Really desperate for some reassurance or tips! Thank you xx

There are other meds available, I would try something else or formula comfort milk at night time - this and early weaning was the only way I coped with my silent refluxer. I feel for you. I think I had ranitidine but cant quite remember x

Have you considered CMPA? Awful reflux and crying after breastfeeding were the only symptoms for my DS. It got worse and worse until around 8 weeks when it got unbearable and I decided to cut all dairy and soy (and I do mean all, you have to be extremely strict). He was a different baby within 10 days.

Does he sleep in a cot? If so, try putting something secure under the head end, to raise his sleeping position slightly. This really helped when my DS had reflux.

thanks so much, I didn’t realise there were other treatments, I just thought it was gaviscon or omeprozole so this is v helpful, I’m going to ask the GP about it x

Gosh that’s good to know. He doesn’t have any other symptoms. I rang the NCT feeding helpline and they said it might be posterior tongue tie so I’m going to have that checked on Monday and if isn’t the case/fixing it doesn’t change anything I’m definitely going to try this. Thanks lots x

Thank you so much, we’ve done this but it doesn’t seem to make a difference sadly x

Rantidine can no longer be prescribed to babies

It is hard, my daughter has severe silent reflux, she has had it since birth but still hasn't outgrown it aged 5! She needed a combination of high dose omperazole (for her doses below 2mg/kg do absolutely nothing), gaviscon, lactulose for the constipation and domperidone as well. She only needed the lactulose for a couple of months but was on the gaviscon and domperidone until a few months ago and she is still on omperazole.

My second is 6 months and he has reflux too but it's been a very different experience. He is more reflux than silent reflux. Around 2 months he was getting some silent reflux in the evenings. He was doing a lot of comfort suckling but I have plenty of milk and meant he was getting a belly full of milk which he then refluxed. We introduced a dummy and used that for a minute or two in order to see if that would calm him and we gave gaviscon too. He was having gaviscon once a day a couple of times a week. At this frequency we didn't have to worry about constipation. It then dropped to once a week and I don't think we have had to use it since 4 months.
He was noisy when asleep so we did cosleep for a bit as he slept quieter like this. After a couple of weeks he was then spending most of the night in his cot.

My daughter was 17 weeks before we got on to the right dose of omperazole and gaviscon. She was screaming, had to be held permanently and we had issues with her development. She scored in the concerning category in all sections of her 4 month assessment. Within a couple of weeks she made loads of progress and by 5 months she was perfectly average. She also has allergies and I went dairy and soya free at the same time.

for anyone be who stumbles across this in the future - the cause appears to be a very bad posterior tongue tie! Xx

@Superscientist thank you so much for this! You’ve gone through a lot - I really hope it improves for your daughter. I’m hoping having the tongue tie sorted will tackle this as already seeing a difference so fingers crossed it works. This is really helpful if not - thank you

Best of luck with the tongue tie revision 🤞🏼Just checking that your clinic gave follow-up instructions to stop it growing back? Also to add that a lactation consultant is worth their weight in gold for reflux issues. Also struggled with it on my first, and second was going the same route. He was a different baby after a lactation consultation.

It could have just been dumb luck but my second was like yours - and EBF - I cut out all dairy and he was so much better when I was dairy free. He doesn’t have a lactose intolerance now.

I'm fairly certain my daughter had a tongue tie. She was about 2 and a half before she could lift her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
My son had a severe tongue tie with the entire tongue attach which was identified at birth. We had it cut in day 8. I have noticed a distinction difference in have the two have breastfed and my daughter fed similarly to my son before his tongue tie was cut.

@NobodysChildNow babies that react to breast milk are reacting to dairy proteins that pass into the breastmilk from dairy that the mother has eaten. Lactose is a sugar which is found in mammalian milks including breastmilk. Removing dairy doesn't remove the lactose from breastmilk and breastmilk has higher levels of lactose than cows milk.

@LondonMumo23 my daughter was reacting to foods in my diet and I'm on a low diary diet now as my daughter still can't have dairy so we are mostly a dairy free house hold. My son's reflux is worse when I have had higher levels of dairy so it is worth considering whether there is any correlation between your diet and reflux if it continues after the tongue tie revision. It might be worth keeping a food diary