Question about our daughter with suspected reflux.... all advice v. gratefully received...

[orangina]

Our 4 month old dd has got reflux (we think).... not the terrible all day screaming and vomiting, but pretty horrid for her anyway. She is so difficult to feed (we are bottle feeding her, having just finished feeding her a mixture of formula and expressed breast milk by bottle), with her refusing to feed when she is clearly hungry, bringing up acid, inconsolable when the pain hits her tummy/oesophagus, etc. We think it was triggered by a change in formula while we were on holiday, but we are back on the original one which she has always been fine with (Aptimil), and today we went to the GP who prescribed us some baby gaviscon which we have, as per instructions, been giving her in her bottle. We have finally settled her for the evening now after a lot of screaming and pain which kicked in about 45 mins after her feed and gaviscon.... can we give her more gaviscon between feeds? Does anyone have any advice as to how best to deal with this? IT breaks my heart to see/hear her so upset when she is generally such a sweet and happy baby most of the time. I really hope most of it clears up now that we are back to the Aptimil, but who knows.....

ALL advice most most gratefully received, thanks so much in advance and sorry this is so long and rambling!

How did you get on Orangina with trying more naps?

I'm still trying! It's so difficult to make a baby nap, don't you think? I'm trying to institute a bit of a nap regime/schedule for dd, who would happily run all day, getting more and more excited/knackered until she crashed and burned at the end of the day in a frenzy of tears etc. But that won't do, so I'm trying for a 1 hour nap after breakfast in the morning (nearly there, am managing to get her to sleep for about 45 minutes, the key being to keep things as quiet as possible after breakfast...), and then a 2 hour nap around about lunchtime, which I am finding v. difficult. When her reflux is bad, I find it even more difficult, as I can't really just leave her to winge/cry in her cot (self soothing or self settling as the experts call it), as I run the risk of her winding herself up a lot and making the reflux worse... So, still working on that one! The end of the day snooze is easy, as she is usually knackered by then. Like you, I really don't want to have to spend all my life with this lo in various darkened rooms etc, but am prepared to do it for a few weeks to try and get her into some kind of routine. Then I think the shopping and dog walking can also have a place in the schedule, like after the morning nap, or after the lunchtime nap.
Well, that's my plan, I'll let you know if it works! Definitely quiet feeding in a dark room helps though, and calm stimulation (if that makes sense!), like reading her a book, helps too....
Charleypops, I'm not sure how old your ds is.... if he is still under 3 months, then he can apparently still do well from naps in his pram etc. So maybe you can do the darkened room thing for a while to get a handle on things, but still consider than any naps grabbed while he is in the pram to be valid (no longer the case with my dd unfortunately, apart from the late afternoon one...)
I was given an incredibly useful book called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr Mark Someone, which has been v. helpful....
Let me know how you get on!

My DS1 is 13 mths and has severe reflux which was only formally diagnosed at 10mths although he had been on gaviscon and ranitidine since around 3 mths. Reflux has delayed his development and he is still not crawling or walking it was only because I pushed to see a paed privately who increased his medication following a barium swallow. The increase in medication stopped his sickness and his weight has shot up in 3 mths. He was prescribed domperidone but this disagreed with him so his is still on ranitidine. Moving to solids can also prove difficult for babies with reflux and lumpy foods have given us even more problems. I would definately recommend seeing a paed if gaviscon is making only some difference.