Two week old reflux - ranitidine

[PassTheCremeEggs]

My two week old has silent reflux and was prescribed gaviscon. Nightmare as I'm breast feeding and getting 15ml of liquid into him was near impossible.

Doc has now prescribed ranitidine which will hopefully be better if only because the amount of liquid to get knot him is much smaller (0.8ml)

Question is - how did people find ranitidine compared to gaviscon for silent reflux? Did it stop the reflux? I'm just so hoping it will help as he is obviously in pain. Gaviscon seemed fairly ineffective (but he was spitting most of it out....)

Hoping for positive stories!

Knot = get...

Arrggh what is wrong with me... Knot = into!

I found the most effective thing was improving positioning not meds. I hadn't wanted to believe this when gastro specialist paediatrician said it but it proved true. ds was much better when almost always upright. So sling both around the house and instead of the pram. He couldn't sleep in a cot even propped up but sometimes slept in bouncy chair but mostly on me.

Sorry if thats not what yiu wanted to hear.

Thanks littleducks. I'm making sure he's upright as much as possible during the day but how did you manage night time?

He slept on his stomach on my chest, he now (9 weeks old) sleeps on his stomach on a matress. Lying on his back he gags on vomit/screams his head off. I worry alot about increased SIDs risk so I wouldn't recommend it tbh but am being honest.

Dd was put on ranitidine at six days old and the difference was amazing! She got on so well with it. Although we were also prescribed dairy free milk (she hasn't got an allergy so don't think it made much difference).

I was so pleased and lucky with getting ranitidine, worked wonders!

In terms of keeping upright at night we put a blanket under the Moses basket mattress to raise her up slightly. You can buy wedges on Amazon as well.

YY to trying to prop up mattress, it didnt work for ds but other people said it worked for them.

All gaviscon does is thicken the stomach contents whereas ranitidine actually reduces the production of stomach acid - so it won't stop the reflux but will stop it being acidic and causing pain. Give it at least a week, preferably two to see how you get on. I had terrible oesophagitis from pregnancy heartburn and it took over a week for my throat to heal and for it to stop hurting.

If the ranitidine - and all the good advice on positioning - doesn't work then you could get a class of drugs called protin pump inhibitors... But actually the trials I think generally show that ranitidine is better for infants.

Thank you for your replies. Will keep on trying to keep him upright and cross fingers that the ranitidine makes a difference. Having a reflux baby is hard work...