Silent reflux nighttime difficulties

[Tammiesmum]

Hi, I have an 8 week old baby girl who has silent reflux. We’re fortunate in that it doesn’t cause her too many problems in general. However nights have become horrendous. She can’t cope on her back at all and screams with pain, it’s horrible. She’s fine on her side or front but I’ve been guilted out of having her sleep like this by people quoting safe sleep guidelines at me. I know they mean well but not one person can tell me what I should do with a baby that can’t sleep on her back. Even if held upright for 2-3 hours post feed she still doesn’t cope. We’ve tried tipping the cot, no improvement (although I don’t know how much you can tip it). Gaviscon also did nothing. So we’ve ended up staying awake all night with her for the last week with her asleep on us or on her front. My other half works nights so I’m often coping alone. It’s not sustainable and I don’t know what to do. Can anyone help? Thank you

My DD had silent reflux, it's awful, and night time was the worst. We found that a dummy really helped, have you tried that? We also made sure to keep her upright for at least 30min after every feed.
But ultimately, we resorted to getting ranitidine prescribed for her.
Sending hugs

Thank you, not even considered a dummy but very open to new things to try!
Did the ranitidine help? GP reluctant to prescribe but I’m considering being more pushy about it as we can’t go on like this.
Thank you

My DD has silent reflux, she is 9 months old. It improved at about 5 months when she was spending more time sitting up and Gaviscon did help a bit. I am BF and cut dairy from my diet which did help, have you tried this? There are also cows milk free formula you can try. We also tilted her next-to-me crib. Nights were difficult, she would wake up a lot in the first half of the night but would then settle for 2 or 3 hours. Now she's teething it is back with a vengeance! I am talking to my doctor to pursue further medication as the Gaviscon has stopped working. She wakes every hour and is awake for up to 2 hours. You are not alone. Silent reflux is horrible, I am at the end of my tether, I know exactly.how you must be feeling.

Our 8week old is the same.

We tried gaviscon but made him worse so we actually switched to hipp organic anti reflux formula which has worked a dream. Still have sickybdays but no pain or crying

I really wish I’d pushed for ranitidine.

Toastie your LO could well be having the 9 month Sleep regression too.

OP I really would push for a different medication. Has the GP mentioned the possibility of CMPA (Cow’s Milk Protein Allergy too and has LO been checked for Tongue Tie.

The trouble is at this age reflux, CMPA and TT can all present with more or less the same symptoms [thanks[

Thank you JJJ.
I am assuming no tongue tie as breastfeeding has always gone relatively smoothly?
Re dairy allergy, I don’t eat much anyway and we ran out of all things dairy for about 7 days during this lockdown and there was no difference so also assuming that’s not the issue.
After lengthy battle with GP on the phone we finally have some Omeprazole prescribed so really hoping for a difference now but it won’t be in the chemist for another 5 days but at least that’s a bit of hope that we might all soon do a bit better for sleeping. Fingers crossed.
After that I think we might have to look into front sleeping.
Thanks for the advice everyone! Any more certainly welcomed.

Thank goodness for the GP finally listening.

If you are BFing, it might be worth having a read of this on dairy and other food sensitivities.

And even if BFing has always gone fairly smoothly, I’d still have a read of the link I posted about Tongue Tie. I never had so much as a sore nipple and DS gained weight. He still had a whopping one though and behaved just like your DD

Wow that’s really interesting, thanks for sharing, I will definitely look further into both of those things. Thank you

My first had silent reflux & she was a different baby on omeprazole. All our problems disappeared!

Omeprazole is a protein pump inhibitor & works by stopping a significant amount of the acid in the stomach being produced. You might find your baba is still refluxy & sick but it shouldn’t be acidic anymore! I’ve taken it through my second pregnancy & got almost zero heartburn 👍🏻

(Ranitidine can’t be prescribed anymore as someone found a cancer causing chemical in it recently, it’s been completely recalled)