Reflux - please help.

[Aliceandthemarchhare]

We had a really bad night last night so sorry if this post sounds ridiculously emotional!

My four month old baby has reflux. The mess is horrific and I’m fed up of washing it out of my hair and putting laundry on and getting us both changed. But I can cope.

However, he’s now in pain with it. Arching his back and screaming. It’s horrible to see him in pain and what he spits up is acidic.

Gaviscon made no difference so we were prescribed omeprazole but I can’t get it in him - he just spits it up.

Are there ANY options? Or do I have to just wait for it to get better?

There's a Facebook group for this, @Aliceandthemarchhare. Lots of parents on it sharing information etc which might give you more ideas and help.

Does your baby have dairy allergy? Apparently reflux is often a symptom of something else so bad latch, allergy etc. Sorry if you already know this.

My DC was refluxy when younger but it has got better over time.

This is the group

Does he take a dummy? Only way I can get my daughter to take omeprazole and not spit it out is wait until she’s hungry so she opens her mouth for anything squirt about half in and immediately put her dummy in so she sucks and swallows, repeat until finished.

If it’s getting worse rather than better I would be looking at allergies.

Sounds like milk allergy , been through this with all mine , fobbed off with gaviscon to start until I pushed for dairy free formula, the change was almost instant , or if breast feeding cut out dairy from your diet see if it helps , keep baby upright after feeds and buy a million muslins to drape everywhere x

We dissolved the omeprazol in a little water to get the beads in the middle out then mixed it with a bit of fruit purée to get it down. Also, try a wedgehog for the cot at night to keep him a little raised. Keep them upright for half an hour after a feed. Good luck, it's gruesome but does end xx

I put the omeprazole in a little yogurt for my little one to take it but that would be your decision on whether you want to give your baby a couple of mouthfuls of food a little early. This would also involve teaching them to swallow food.

You haven't said if your baby's bf or bottle fed but for the gaviscon I've found the best thing for bf is to do a normal feed then make the gaviscon up in some formula. I found that it didn't thicken in expressed milk but will in formula (I use the cow and gate comfort). Then give this to the baby.

DS is 11 months old now and still sufferers so is on omeprazole everyday then with his feed before bed I do the gaviscon trick to get him through the night. I also night weaned him at about 7 months when I knew he could handle it.

I assume your doing all the other tricks, raised cot head, up right for a while after a feed ect? On top of this if your babies nice and stable the consider changing from the carry cot the buggy attachment of the pram if you haven't done so already. My DS hated the carry cot so I changed him over at 10 weeks and got an insert to cradle his head a little and he would sleep so well when out and about in it.
Also I think there might be such a thing as liquid omeprazole but it's not routinely prescribe so you could try pushing for it?

Thank you. The thing is that the usual tricks don’t seem to work. I always hold him upright after feeds but he sometimes brings back milk an hour and a half after a feed. Weirdly, at night it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. He is also able to have far more milk in this period. I can’t make sense of it. I don’t think it’s an allergy to be honest. It’s too irregular for that. Some days are fine, some are awful and some in between.

@Aliceandthemarchhare this sounds like my DS, there was no rhyme or reason to his reflux, it just seems to be purely mechanical.

There is another medication called lansoprazole that can apparently be used that you could talk to the gp about?

I'm going through a similar thing with my 3mo dd, she is much more sicky than previous babies. Usually small amounts after a feed but then the occasional (up to twice a week) massive projectile vomit. This could be well after a feed too.

A week ago I started a dairy free diet because she hasn't been putting on weight well. I didn't think she was a very sad baby but a week in to dairy free and she seems like a much happier girl. Loads of smiles, much less comforting and white noise. Time will tell if the weight and projectile vomits improve too.

The point was to say don't rule out allergies, she doesn't have typical allergy symptoms but seems so much happier now. It's worth a try.

Thanks edin, it’s really hard getting the GP to take it seriously! I know babies spit up milk but not like this - it does worry me.

My DD’s reflux got seriously bad at 4 months, I think it peaks at this age. I was advised to wean at 5 months but it didn’t make a difference as the purées were so thin. It got better around 7/8 months when she was eating more solid food.

I had this with my eldest. It got really bad at 3/4 months. She didn't have a milk allergy she had severe silent reflux (was diagnosed as GORD). No vomiting, just pain pain pain. Ended up hospitalised twice with it.

She ended up under a Gastro paediatrician who prescribed both Omeprazole and Ranitidine. It did improve after that but she always hated drinking milk. It got much better by about 8/9 months when she was weaning (we tried early weaning on medical advice at 5m but she just spat it out and in fact she weaned later as her gag reflex was so sensitive so early weaning was not a cure for us). It helps when they're more upright, can sit for periods too.

Sadly the only real cure for reflux is time, they do mostly grow out of it. But the right medication can help a lot. Gaviscon is rubbish, it just makes them constipated!

Dr Browns vented bottles also helped as did propping up the end of her cot so her head was higher than her feet.

My youngest had it too, less severely but from younger. She was a vomiter but had no pain luckily. Ranitidine on its own did the trick with her and she was fine by 6m.

@Aliceandthemarchhare Get the GO to refer you to a paediatrician. They don't take it seriously at the GPs. I was fobbed off for weeks with 'colic' and told I was over anxious and that babies did just cry! Balls. It's a medical condition and they need help for it!

This was similar to my DD. Fed fine at night, during the day she would vomit 50 times. Started losing weight.
We had her on omeprazole, are you squirting it into his cheek in really small amounts? That worked for me. And frankly I used to hold DD’s mouth shut until she swallowed it. Also if you blow into the faces when you give the meds it can trigger their swallowing reflex.