Search Results for 'breast feeding'

[Anonymous]

I am SOOO tired! And I am started back to work yesterday. 🙁 Our days seem like they are going a bit better. I am trying to really stick to my limited diet, but our nights are horrible. They have been this way for a long time, but I just kept thinking it was something I ate…now I am not so sure? Audrey will only sleep for 1-2 hours and sometimes not even that. Last night I feel like I was helping her cope all night long. she wasn’t supposed to get her prevacid until 7am but I gave it to her at 5am because she was screaming and would go back to sleep and wouldn’t eat (though it seemed like she wanted to). Shortly after her medicine, she ate then slept for an hour. UGH! I just cry!

I see that somone said if you are on this forum you need to see a GI specialist? I have questions about this…my daughter is 4 mo. –is she too young? will they be able to do anything for her, or are they going to say her intestines are irritated (this I know)? I just hate to do some invasive thing if they really can’t do anything for her. My ped said we could do some stool tests, but they would mostly just be reassurance for me. I’m not sure how, but if there’s nothing they are going to be able to know or do, then I don’t see a reason to bother with it. I am feeling very desparate! I have tried to weed through some of the many helpful links, I just don’t have time to do all of the reading between home and work right now. Audrey is on 15 mg of Prevacid 2x a day at 4 mo. I think this is a max? Where do I go from here? I meet with her doctor on Friday…what should I advocate for regarding medicine and or GI specialists?

Please help!

(It is so hard to keep going when everyone seems to look at me and say “couldn’t you just use formula”? Breastfeeding is so important to me,b ut sometimes I feel like i am just making everyone miserable!)

Rachel

[Anonymous]

I’ve been on TED for 10 wks now so I feel your pain . We went on a wk long vacation (w/ the kiddos though) last wk & I was a bit more adventurous w/ my diet but nothing too crazy . I tried some new meats, drank some red wine & beer, even tried wheat (I know, I’m out of control-j/k)… I kept saying that I was playing w/ fire, but it was fairly ok overall.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but the biggies like milk & soy take up to 2wks (or longer) to leave your system as well as baby’s. I think wheat/gluten may be like this too but I’m not sure.

Edited to add: Most other foods are out of your system as well as baby’s in around 3-4 days. Sometime sooner (I’ve found it’s only 1-2 days for my son but he also reacts very quickly to intolerances) & sometimes longer.

If I were you I’d venture some away from TED & have a good time, but not get too crazy. Personally, I wouldn’t eat any dairy or soy but would probably eat (& drink!!! ) most other things. The problem will be that many many things will include milk or soy.

I hope you have a good trip away… I enjoyed our 1st trip away from Brodie (my oldest son) more than I thought I would. I was still nursing him (but not on TED) so I pumped some while away as well… how romantic huh?! We were gone for 5 days though. He was 15 mths old & I kind of thought he might wean (not remember bf’ing) when I got back but that was a joke .

erinntx2008-08-23 21:21:29

[Anonymous]

don’t even bother with gentian violet—-it’s a pretty old fashioned way of trying to treat thrush—-not to mention it makes a horrible mess, and the stains do not come out.

we battled thrush for waaaay too long and then sylvia finally ended up with it in her esophagus. you and your son BOTH need to be treated at the same time and the best thing to use is diflucan because it works systemically. even if one of you didn’t have obvious thrush, you would still need to treat both of you at the same time if you are breastfeeding.

sylvia was having trouble desating at the hospital, they even briefly thought that they might have to life-flight her somewhere else. they told me her lungs were immature. (at full term???) she spent the first month of her life on oxygen. we later learned that reflux can cause a baby to desat. reflux can start right away in some babies. seems like there are a lot of old wives tales about reflux being circulated around by the doctors and other professional medical people!!!!

kevieb2008-08-23 20:09:19

[Anonymous]

I am currently doing the TED for myself and my ds who’s 1yr. My dh and I are taking a mini-vacation for Labor day, our first overnighter!! A 5 star resort near us is hosting a all inclusive party for military and there is food included. I want to have a good time, I need to have a good time, KWIM?
My question is, how long does it take for the possible allergic foods to get out of breastmilk once ingested? I’m going to be gone about 24-30 hours. Will I be okay to go crazy and eat what I want if I pump?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[Anonymous]

I have a 6 week old who projectile vomited at least 1 time a day from about a week old on. she gasps and wheezes and arches her back and is often fussy and pulling off repeatedly during feedings. She wasn’t napping or sleeping well at night. Around 3 weeks we tried maalox before feedings and sleeping on tummy(i know, bad) and she was a different baby. 3 naps a day, 4 or 5 hours of straight sleep at night, liked to lay down and kick around, not screaming all the time. After 10 days of bliss her symptoms returned, but much worse. She was awake for 10 hours straight and screamed for 3 straight. vomiting multiple feedings a day, and of course spitting up regularly. no more naps or only 10 minutes while being held, waking herself up at night making horrible gasping, grunting, and wheezing noises, sounds like she is choking, lots of gas, and also started pooping more frequently(7 or 8 times) after having slowed to 2 or 3 a day. My girl was so sweet when she felt well and she is going back to being miserable again! we are trying zantac morning and night and maalox at 4 feedings, but so far no better. She vomited both breastfeedings today, but did keep down 2 feedings of breastmilk given by bottle. I have not been eating anything spicy or any fresh veggies and only having a dairy product once a day or every few days. WHAT TO DO????

[Anonymous]

I’ll ask her ped for prevacid, thx so much!
and i’m planning to use the similac rs, has anyone recommend this formula?
my daughter doesn’t have allergy on milk/soy but she spitting up so much since feeding strike.
she spit up more on breastmilk…

[Anonymous]

Beth, BIG BIG BIG Hugs!!! I’ve been there. It was terrible, seemed like a nighmare. Your story sounds exactly like ours. We were also told it was colic or breastfeeding problems like OAL. Hailey was difficult to feed, same description as Zachary. It started around a week old, and I hate to say, but got gradually worse. Our doc kept telling us to persist, and we did. We were waiting for her to “outgrow her colic”. Until at 8 weeks old, the feeding challenges turned into a flat out feeding strike. I couldn’t get anything into her. I was at my wits end. She was hungry but would not nurse or bottle feed EBM. Out of desperation we tried formulas- hypos and regular. This was no better. Our doc diagnosed her with reflux at that point, said to try the zantac for a few days, and if that didn’t work then we’d do prilosec compound. The zantac did nothing, the screaming and arching and feeding refusal continued. We tried the prilosec, but the compound was useless, and unfortunately, at the time, this was the only PPI available in Canada where I live, so we had no choice. We kept increasing the dose, saw several doctors, had tests, etc. The feeding remained a nightmare, I spent the whole day and night trying to feed her, 1-2 ounces. It was horrible. I cried a lot. No one understood and came back with useless advice (“she’ll eat when she’s hungry”, “she feels your stress so she’s stressed”, “a baby won’t starve, she’ll take as much as she needs”). Meanwhile, she’d go for half a day without eating, we’d switched to the bottle b/c I couldn’t keep up my milk supply, and the only way I could get her take anything at all was by trying to get her to sleep on my shoulder, then popping in the bottle. If she was relaxed enough, I could do it this way, but she still hardly ate, and it was very challenging, especially with my other dd, who wasn’t even 2, running around. It escalated to Hailey only being able to eat when asleep, in her glider, in the dark, in total silence, in her room, and even then it was hard. I felt trapped in the house.

Finally (she was 8 months) we saw a good GI who put her on prevacid capsules (which had just come to Canada), at a decent dose, which I managed to get increased to 30mg and we put it in CaraCream. It helped quite a bit overtime, but the feeding aversion was already there. I sought help from a feeding therapist when she was 8 months old and also refusing solids. We were in feeding therapy until she was 16 months old or so.

We finally did manage to get things under control, and at 19 months, she started to take her bottle willingly. By 16 months old, we were discharged from feeding therapy with a very fussy eater with a tiny appetite- but an eater nonetheless.

By her third birthday, Hailey was off prevacid, eating as per her own fussy and limited style, and drinking soy milk.

I’m sure these timelines sound terrible, but we got things sorted out too late. It was a long hard road, but hopefully if you get things sorted out earlier, you will go down a better path.

My advice would be- and I apologize in advance if it sounds harsh-

1) Get a new doctor. Tell us where you’re from and someone here can recommend a good doc for you. Either a ped GI or a good family doc who is knowledgeable about infant reflux. Your doc doesn’t take your situation seriously, colic is not a good diagnosis, and it’s too long to wait till he’s 3 months to get moving on a reflux diagnosis.

2) Get him on a good dose of PPI. I personally would try prevacid in caraCream (from marci-kids) as it was our saviour. Check out the marci kids website for more info and about dosing. They’re aggressive, but their doses work. I don’t know the new web address but hopefully someone else will reply.

3) Get help from others. It can be exhausting trying to feed a reflux baby, and you’ll need some rest for yourself.

4) Don’t worry about your baby associating you with bad feelings. Our feedings were nightmares- each and every one- and sometimes I even lost it… crying or screaming out of frustration. I’m not proud of it, but Hailey is the most loving child and she adores me despite it all.

5) When you get your new doc, ask for testing. We had an upper GI (which is essentially useless, especially as dd was not a spitter so we knew she didn’t have pyloric stenosis). We also had a swallowing study, and an endoscopy, and I found these very useful. The swallowing study/modified barium swallow/feeding evaluation may help to make sure that he’s sucking/swallowing/breathing/feeding properly, and that everything is going to the right place. Not everyone likes the idea of testing, though, so I understand that.

6) Consider MSPI. That is sometimes a factor that causes reflux symptoms and/or feeding problems.

Anyhow, hang in there. I know how hard it was. I felt like few people understood… the feeding aversion was so much harder then the reflux itself. But if you get a good doc, a good dose of meds, then that’s the right step. But the dose needs to be high enough, or else it won’t work. A doc who doesn’t think that there’s a problem probably won’t do that, but that’s just my experience. You can also contact Dr. Phillips directly via email (he’s from marci-kids) and ask him to contact your physician. He’s done it before, and sometimes can convince them to try different meds.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I posted about this in another topic, but I am so frustrated right now, I need to vent. My baby is continuing to have problems eating and it’s so frustrating to try to feed your child and not be able to even though he’s so hungry. He keeps popping off the breast and crying, and it takes a lot of time and patience to get him to eat enough.My family tries to understand, but I don’t think they quite get it.

The dr. put him on Zantac last week, and I e-mailed her to let her know it wasn’t helping, told her how hard it is to feed him, and asked if there was anything else we could try. I also mentioned that he hadn’t pooped in over 4 days and it seemed to be making him even more uncomfortable. This was her response:

“Hi! The trial of Zantac was to see if we could alleviate the pain( if
ever) associated at times with reflux. This is usually our first-line.
As I said I think his primary problem at present time may be colic. Dr.
Howard thought he had colic as well ( based on a review of her
notes/diagnoses). Colic usually improves by 3 months of age give and
take a few weeks. If he were not gaining weight or even more so, if he
were losing weight, I would consider using a PPI or even doing a
work-up or referral.

At this point, I would just advise to watch for red flags like projectile vomiting ,fever,turning blue with feeds, etc.
We
have to see if his colic will improve ( a lot of times all it takes is
time). If you go to my website-www .permanente.net/doctor/aimeesimbre
you can look up the videos in newborn care and see “how to soothe a
fussy baby” and or look up colic in the healthwise encyclopedia. I will
enclose some facts about this.
If there are any more concerns/new
symptoms, then I would like to see him back at the clinic to make sure
he is not losing weight.”

So frustrating! I’d like her to come try to feed my baby once and see how she feels. The only reason my baby is not losing weight is because of my persistence to feed him. I feel like I spend about 75% of my day trying to feed a screaming baby.

I know that my situation is not as bad as many, and my DS could have a lot of worse things, but it’s still frustrating and it makes me feel sad. And I know this probably sounds stupid, but I get scared that my baby is going to associate me with these bad feedings/pain and will think negatively about me. I know that probably isn’t the case, but I can’t help thinking that.

Mainly I’m frustrated with my ped. because if she would just say “hey, let’s try something else,” I would feel better. At least *try*.

Okay, thanks for letting me vent! It’s just been one of those days that ends in tears and I needed a way to get out some of my frustration.

[Anonymous]

So sorry to hear that you had such a terrible day. As to the breast feeding incident, do not let ignorant people discourage you from doing what is best for your baby! Things WILL get better. It is so hard in the mean time, but you and your little one will make it through. I hope that things improve sooner rather than later.

[Anonymous]

Yep, I would say that the OAL is a huge culprit. His feeding habits sound a lot like my kids’. Block feeding is the way to go, as you’ve already done, but you may want to try feeding him while lying down or even with him on top of you. The gravity issue helps slow the flow. Also, I would always take Ben off my breast when the milk first let down and let the spray come out into a cloth diaper. Once it stopped the forceful spray, I would put him back on. That helped alot. My son always ate better in the middle of the night too, but I think it had alot to do with the fact that my breasts weren’t so full by the end of the day.

I do think that the meds are probably not high enough too. If the doc. isn’t going to budge, I would look for another doctor. Have she seen the Marci Kids info? It might be worth sharing that, and going from there.

[Anonymous]

hi there,

Christine is right, thrush can be horrible and it can be tough to get rid of. Here is an old post of mine when Landen had thrush. I ended up using these wonderful ladies advice and asked for the oral diflucan for Landen to get rid of it. If you are breastfeeding, you will need something for yourself too.

Good luck, I remember how tough this was. The reflux was 100x worse for Landen when he thrush. I remember it to be one of the worst flare ups he ever had. (you will hear me say that often on this board)

https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9376

[Anonymous]

My DS has been on Zantac for a week, and at first I thought I saw some improvement, but the last couple of days it’s been back to the same nursing struggles. He is nearly 16 lbs and was only on .9ml twice a day, so I started giving him a little more, and nothing. In fact, the only change that I’ve seen is that since starting the medicine he hasn’t pooped in the last 3 days. Before, he was going several times a day.

I have a couple of questions. Should I give Zantac more time before calling my ped. and letting her know that it isn’t working? Or should I just try upping the dose even more? I have a hard enough time as it is giving him his medicine, because he chokes on it and can’t stand the taste. I’ve even tried mixing it with Cherry Mylanta. I’m worried that I’m going to have to be forceful with my ped. to get another kind of medication, because she had previously said that if Zantac doesn’t work it’s “just colic.” I’ve already gotten some good advice from the ladies on here about being a little more forceful.

My last question is… could this be anything other than reflux? For the most part, my DS seems like a happy baby. He has his crying fits once in awhile, but not like some of the women on here describe. He doesn’t scream for a long time, usually when he cries, I can comfort him. Really, the only problem is when I feed him he starts crying, bobs off the breast, tries to eat some more, cries some more, etc. It’s a struggle almost everytime. During the middle of the night, he feeds well because he’s half asleep. I’m just wondering if it could be something other than reflux and that’s why Zantac hasn’t helped. Any ideas? I should mention that his feeding problems started about 4-5 weeks ago with one or two of his feedings and progressed to almost all of his feedings. I’ve tried to deal with OAL and I’ve also lessened my supply by doing block feedings.

Thanks for any advice!

zachysmom2008-08-20 01:53:13

[Anonymous]

Ladies,

I wanted to share our successes…our son has silent reflux, which wasn’t diagnosed until he was nearly 5 months old. (He’s now 6 months.) He was suffering since he was 3 months. He was a very very frequent night waker…sometimes every hour. I thought it was my fault…that I wasn’t able to get him to sleep the right way.

Our doc finally put him on Prevacid Solutabs…it seemed to go just fine. A week and a half into the meds, DS had a ‘breath holding episode’ (BHE)…or what we thought was a seizure. After a stay at the hospital and lots of tests, we learned that everything is normal physiologically (yay), but that he did have reflux and possibly a GI bug that made the reflux bad enough to have that BHE.

Fast forward three weeks and a change in pediatricians….and we have a whole new child! He’s happy, he sleeps better. Breastfeeding is going slightly better (some of the crying is a behavioral thing, I think, not a reflux issue).

For the last three nights, he’s slept a five hour stretch! Yaaaay! Which means I only get up twice a night! Yahooooooooo! *knock on wood* Of course I expect some variation in all of that…but I’m delighted with his recovery.

I really found lots of helpful information and support here. Thank you!

Hugs to all!

Brenna and Amedeo

[hellbennt]

reflux can affect everything- eating, sleeping, pooping, etc.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever had heart burn, but it hurts!

there are grown adults who go to the emergency room thinking they are having a heart attack and it’s reflux….

also, I’m sorry to say, that 5hrs is considered ‘sleeping through the night’

*sigh*

this baby stuff sure is hard, isn’t it?

once babies are more comfortable, and aren’t in pain all the time, then sleeping, eating, etc does get better

I’d look at babywearing: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1044&PN=1

so that you can wear your baby and perhaps he’d sleep that way for longer than 40 minutes. since he’s ‘heavy’ I’d look for the info about MEI TAIS (nope, not a drink, LOL!) and wraps– look for the link right at the top of the page after you click on the above link- it’s called ‘babywearing condensed’

also: diet can affect sleep. “diet?” you ask. well, what formula is your son on or are you breastfeeding? many babies have reflux either as a result from having mspi (reflux as a symptom of mspi) or, in addition to it. from ‘groupie intro’ https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=853&PN=1&TPN=1,

there are links to mspi information (milk/soy protein intolerance/allergy)

[hellbennt]

I would keep a food journal. maybe something you’re eating lately at dinner is affecting him? it takes about 3-5 hrs for what you eat to get to your milk, so the feeding(s) after that is when you’ll see the affect from baby…think about any changes in your diet, even if you’ve changed prenatals or vitamins or medications, or even toothpaste or mouthwash, lol…

what are stools like? I doubt it’s constipation. constipation is hard pebbles. ‘difficulty’ pushing stools out is something different.

are stools mucousy (like snot? stringy?) green and foamy (like shaving cream)? green & watery? or are they regular mustardy seedy breastfed baby stools?

if they’re green and foamy this could be OAL (overactive letdown also known as foremilk/hindmilk imbalance)

if they’re green and watery it could also be OAL or a sign of MSPI (milk/soy protein intolerance/allergy)

if they’re mucousy this is also a sign of MSPI

the above ‘non regular’ breastfed baby stools are perfectly normal from time to time- NOT if they’re the majority of the diapers, though.

the majority should be mustardy/seedy breastfed baby stools.

here’s a helpful link & look for the purple post(s) because I’ve posted there, too: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10133&PID=87611#87611

ALSO: I think I helped you figure out the zantac dose? anyway it could be that it’s not providing enough coverage at night. zantac is very very weight sensitive & the dose needs to be adjusted w/ every little weight gain…

hellbennt2008-08-17 13:42:15