Weaning a reflux baby

[JatinderB]

My DS is 3 months and I'm thinking ahead about how it will be when he starts taking in solids as he has reflux.

We have learnt to manage his reflux by holding him upright during and after feeds and he is also on infant gaviscon which he takes in his milk. He also has Domperidone and ranitidine every 6 and 8 hours. He loves his milk but I'm concerned he won't keep solids down.

Has anyone any tips/experiences of weaning a reflux baby?

Actually, you might well find weaning him with solids easier than you have found feeding him milk.
Babies don't usually start eating solids until they are able to sit upright.
The mere fact of being vertical helps everything to stay down.
In addition, solid food is less likely to come back up than liquids.
Weaning might actually be a factor that could help his reflux.

Do you know what causes the reflux?
Is it caused by any allergies or intolerances?
If so, you might want to be careful about which foods you feed him.
Only introduce foods one at a time. Introduce them early in the day so that you see any reactions during waking hours.
Give him a few days between introductions of new foods.
Start with foods that are very unlikely to cause reactions; root veg, baby rice etc.

Follow simple advice like this and more importantly, follow the lead of your baby. It will go better than you might think!

Reflux is a pain in the arse isn't it! You just think you have got the meds right and then weaning comes along and you have to think everything over again. My lo had very nasty reflux cmpi and a few other allergies thrown in for fun. We found that fruit was a problem at the beginning - pear, apple, mango, citrus etc weren't good for the reflux. Root veg and rice were just fine though. Tomatos, peppers and onions took a while. Fortunatly even if he couldn't eat these things to start with by about 8 months he was able to eat all of them in any quantity without a problem, he also halved his omeprazole dose and was ok. Growing up makes all the difference. DS was a bit funny about having food off a spoon, he really liked to be in control so consider baby lead weaning.

Good luck and enjoy watching the facial expressions as he tries new foods, the funniest were when DS ate something he clearly didn't like but then went back for a second try just encase!

@ruthchan The reflux is caused by the opening to his tummy not being strong enough and not allergies. I think you're right and weaning might work better than I think. Thanks for the pointers

@needmen how long was it before you lo grew out of it completely?

I know what you mean by reflux being a pain. I've noticed my lo is sounding chesty again which means I'll have to get him weighed and have his meds adjusted accordingly because the dosage is probably not enough now he's grown. It's hard because I wish he wasn't on the meds but I also don't want him to be in pain.

Dd wouldn't wean with purees though tbh I didn't try very hard and just switched to finger foods where she did much better. It is messy sometimes and up until recently she was still sick fairly recently, if she gags on anything then the whole meal comes back - it doesn't seem to bother her its just annoyking because then she's hungry again.
There are certain things now (18m) she still doesn't seem able to handle, especially lettuce for some reason. She's been sick today after lunch but she has a cough...
She loves food though and life is so much easier than when it took an hour for her to have her bottle because she was screaming nd arching her back and being sick.

You should seriously consider weaning a reflux baby well before 26 weeks. My DS (14months) has had bad reflux from birth. We thought the reflux had disappeared at 5 months but it had become silent reflux. It wasn't treated properly with omeprozole until 9 months. By this stage he had worked out that he didn't want to eat food. Some peadiatricians we have spoken to are of the view that we weaned him too late (we weaned around 5.5-6 months). Anyway, he still doesn't want to eat food. Have seen SALT, child psychologist, dietitian...

He will not eat from a spoon but, because he actually doesn't want to eat, finger foods aren't particularly successful either. Sometimes he will let us put food into his mouth with our fingers.
His behaviours around food are putting quite a strain on DH and I and I find meal times very upsetting (although try not to let it show, try to make it fun or try to just leave him to it).

I guess I will not know if the outcome would have been different if we'd started earlier. But something you could discuss with your GP.

My DD had silent reflux. We tried early weaning on nutritionist advice but although she loved eating purees, she got horribly constipated so we had to stop, and she was constipated after just a couple of teaspoons once a day for 3 days! Nutritionist said to go back to milk only as her gut was immature. So we battled on, she was on omeprazole which helped but wasn't perfect. We tried several times, every 2 weeks from 4.5 months to 7 months, every time she got constipated and we gave up and went back to milk. At 7 months I gave her a sweet potato chunk and she woofed it down. We had very few further problems with food. She hated purees but loved finger foods, the crunchier and more difficult to eat the better. By 10 months she had dropped meds completely and basically the reflux had gone, she was eating everything she possibly could and from being tiny got quite plump!