New mom and baby w/ reflux

Hello and welcome,

Boy I can remember those days only to well, knowing something isn’t right, but not feeling as if anyone will listen and that nothing I was doing was helping. There were a fair few tears in my house.

But things do get better and here we are months down the track finally weaning of medicines. So things will get better. Things really turned around for me when I found this site so I hope we can help you.

Firstly, a lot of us find that Zantac works initially and then stops. It is very weight sensitive so the dose needs to be adjusted up fairly regularly. My guess is that your dose is probably low (most Drs underdose it). If you post your bubs weight someone will help you out. It also seems that the bubs become “less sensitive” to zantac so even if the dose keeps going up it doesn’t have as good as effect.

Secondly, at some point most of us have had to move on from Zantac to another medication…a PPI (proton pump inhibitor). he can read all about them at marci-kids.com. These meds have been a life saver for most of us and once on the right dose (most drs underdose these too) many babies do very well. In the meantime you could try some mylanta cherry supreme to see if it takes the edge of things a bit.

thirdly, it seems a lot of drs just don’t know much about infant reflux or what is the current research in the area. You might have to educate them or find a Dr who is willing to be educated.

Some babies with reflux also have MSPI (milk soy protein intolerance). They can also seem fussy, in pain etc and often have mucous in stools or other allergic responses (like exzma). The gas pains could be from the cereal? Some mums find thickening helps, but others don’t.

To help us help you a little-

How old is your bub?

What are his symptoms (eg arching, refusing feeds etc)?

What formula are you using?

What type of cereal are you using?

I’m so glad you found us and I hope we can help you. Please know that this will improve. It took us a few weeks to get everything figured out with Alana (she was diagnosed about 7-8 weeks). But once we did things improved dramatically.

Welcome again.

That’s exactly how my babies acted during feedings. I could tell they were hungry, but they’d take a few sips and then start screaming and refusing anymore. It’s because they are hungry but they are also in pain. I imagine it would be like sitting down to a meal when you have heartburn.

I personally would not try soy. Many babies who have intolerances to milk also are intolerant to soy. He may not even have a problem with his formula, it may be straight reflux. Neither of my babies had any problems with milk except that they got eczema. For them it was just a matter of getting them on a good dose of a PPI medication. Ellie sadly was never on a PPI was miserable for 9 months, but I was fortunate to have found this site and marci-kids when my son was born and he was finally put on a good dose of Prevacid. 10 days later he was happy and eating like a “normal” baby. So, I’d suggest asking for a PPI medication. Read the info at marci-kids first so you are armed with good information and print it out in case your doc is skeptikal.

Getting back to formula, if you want to try another one I’d suggest Alimentum RTF. (The powder contains a lot of corn which bothers some babies, the RTF has much less or no corn), BUT I’d also push for that PPI medication because his symptoms definitely sound like reflux.(He could have both reflux and mspi…many babies do). The problem with making two changes at once is that when things improve you won’t know if it was the meds or the formula, but personally I wouldn’t care. If my baby was in pain I’d try both options and sort it out later.

Also I’d try stopping the rice cereal. Many babies get very gassy and consitpated on it. Are you using it to help with his reflux, or because he chokes on thinner feedings? It’s really trial and error with everything related to reflux, and thickening is one of those things. For some babies it helps, but for others it does nothing to improve the reflux and it can actually make things worse for some babies (because of the gas and constipation).

Well, good luck. I know it’s a lot to take in. But just keep asking questions and all the experienced and wonderful moms here will help in any way they can.

I would just go straight to asking for a PPI…it sounds like classic reflux and the Zantac clearly isn’t working. Arm yourself with the info from Marci-kids as Christine suggested and if your dr won’t go for it go to another (it was my family dr, not the pead who agreed to the meds and the dose).

We did meds and formula at the same time and it was hard to work out if she really had MSPI…so we had to do a normal formula trial later to work it out. It turns out she couldn’t tolerate a normal formula but it was still a bit confusing until then. My advice would be to get the right meds first at the right dose and look into formula once you have the meds worked out.

I would also think about dropping the cereal…Alana reacted to cereal around that age too (although I know some bubs do well on it).

And yes…this reflux stuff sure does suck

i would wait a bit before i increase the meds.. because you wont know if the nutramigen helped him or not.. that is what happened to me.. i switched to alimentum the same time i increased his meds..and about 2 weeks later he was a lot better…but i never knew which one worked…

but…. thats only if you would like to know if he is protien intolerant.. if not and you really would like some immediate reflief.. i guess i would increase it sooner rather than later.. maybe give it a week to see how he does.. you are supposed to give new meds and new formula 2 weeks before you know if it really does work or not. but 7.5 mg’s is on the low side..

and with the excema … my son gets it as well.. and i personally believe it is related to dairy/soy…. though many doctors will deny it and just call it dry skin… but i think in a lot of the situations it is something in their diet (but not all).

well.. i hope he gets relief from the new changes soon!

Hi again

I would go to the 15mg, maybe given twice a day. I know its not ideal to do both things at the same time…but once he’s well you can decide then whether to test the protein intolerance (by trying him on another formula). At the end of the day the nutramigen will not do any harm if he doesn’t need it.

Keep going with the zantac (spaced 3-4 hours from the prevacid) for the next couple of weeks. It may take that long to see the effect of the prevacid and the zantac will give a little relief in the meantime. you could also add some mylanta as required.

It sounds like you are doing solutabs. I have never used them. Some people seem to pop them in the bubs mouth and let them dissolve? Hopefully one of the other solutab mums will give you some ideas about how they do it.

Adriana uses solutabs.

Are you getting 15mg solutabs? I gave it in 2 doses. I learned how to administer it from this website. I use a pill cutter and keep the unused piece in tin foil until I use it (I read that its important to do that somewhere on this site).

I dissolve the piece in about 2mls of water in a black measuring Tablespoon (that way you can see all the beads and make sure you sucked them up). I use the drooper from a mylacon bottle beacuse it’s thicker and all the beads can come out of it. After I give it to her, I drop some water in her mouth to make sure all the beads got washed down.

Oh and 30 mins. before meals!!

Does he take it down with a dropper or spit it out. I had to use a nipple with a hole cut bigger (so the beads will all come out) for a long time with Adriana. It tricked her into thinking she was getting a bottle. One big suck and all the medicine was down her. Then I’d squirt some water in it to wash it down.

So many tips, I know. Hopefully some come in handy.

Oh, and it took almost 3 weeks to notice a difference in Adriana. Good luck in these next couple weeks.

oops, forgot the link:

https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=853&am p;PN=1