Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Children's health

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

CMPA/Reflux Advice

2 replies

Teachermum25 · 18/08/2025 20:19

DS is 9 weeks old now and we’ve struggled with reflux from not long after he was born. He regurgitates a significant amount of his bottles after each feed. We sit him up for at least half an hour after feeding, pace feed etc, and nothing helps. He can still be bringing the milk up hours after his feed. He sometimes coughs/chokes on the milk as he’s bringing it back up, even though it’s so thin. He hiccups after most feeds, sneezes a lot and sounds super congested at night. He’s very fussy and cries for hours at a time each day. It’s very rare that’s he’s awake and not crying.

He was put on gaviscon at a few weeks old which we have gradually increased to the maximum dosage (12 sachets per day), and is on his fifth formula (cow and gate, aptamil, kendamil goat’s, aptamil pepti, SMA althera). The goat’s milk formula eased the awful screaming in pain we were experiencing along side arching of back, painful tummy and lack of passing gas, but the sneezing/congestion/hiccups etc were still apparent. He was put on aptamil pepti for suspected CMPA which did slightly ease some symptoms but his reflux was so much worse, I’m guessing because of how thin the milk was, and he hated the tasted, even slowly transitioning across with that and the goats formula, he refused to drink it. He was then moved onto SMA althera which were on now (it’s been a week), and again, it’s so thin, his reflux is horrific, despite the 12 sachets of gaviscon each day.

I feel like there’s so many options and I don’t know what to do for the best. Do we try carobel with a CMPA formula to see if that helps? Do we ask for something stronger like omeprazole? Is it even CMPA or is he on watery formula for no reason and I should try an anti-reflux or comfort one? I’ve heard lots about HIPP organic but I’m scared to trial a new one just in case it is CMPA! Our GP is lovely but is very honest in saying that she is not an expert in formulas and infant reflux/CMPA so it feels like we’re having to research options ourselves and then ask for it! Help!!!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
e24b · 18/08/2025 22:34

I'm by no means an expert on this - my DS has recently turned 1 and has been "diagnosed" CMPA since 5 weeks!

It seems a lot of milk changes for such a short space of time. My GP advised to wait 6 weeks before changing to see how hed settle.
We used Althera & then Alfamino and swore by carobel to thicken it to help reflux!

We were put on Omeprazole by the dietician- we only had phone calls with her and she was utterly useless. It didnt work for us.

If you're on Facebook, there is an amazing CMPA group which has helped loads. You can get some good (and awful) advice but its good to hear from other parents going through the same!

Superscientist · 19/08/2025 08:53

I would want to be trying a completely dairy free milk such as alfamino or neocate. You've tried a lot of formulas but there's not been a great deal of variety in the formula. Pepti and althera are both extensively hydrolysed formulas and if you react to one there's a reasonable chance you will react to the other. About 90% of babies with cmpa react to all mammalian milks so like to react to goats milk formula.

I'd start with gaviscon in the completely dairy free formula but you could try carobel with them too.
I would also ask to try omperazole. To get my daughters reflux better managed she needed as much gaviscon as I could get in her, the highest dose of omperazole and me removing her allergens from my diet. Once we reached the point that the omperazole couldn't be increased further we ended up on domperidone too

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread