Tried it all

[L&M's Mom]

My 2 month old has multiple problems. She has reflux and is on Zantac and Mylanta. She is scheduled for an upper GI and modified barium swallow. She also is colicky. We put her on Nutramigen which worked like a miracle for my older child. However, with this baby, she continued to be fussy and had constant diarrhea. I called my Dr. and begged to have her placed on Neocate, a prescription formula. It costs $49 every 3 days!!! She became constipated on it but no longer fussed. Her poops have been forest green on both the Nutramigen and Neocate. I have researched all of the formulas. At my husband's suggestion, we are now trying Prosobee. We originally skipped trying Soy because it didn't work with our first child. On the Prosobee, her poops are now tan again but fairly loose. So far ( this is our 2nd day on the soy) she is doing well. However, on all of the formulas, she screams as if she is in terrible pain when she has a BM. On the Nutramigen, she would fuss, fidget and scream for hours until she finally had a BM and then she would settle down. I have tried Mylicon and Hyland's colic tablets. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

[honeybunny78]

My DD has the same thing. Shes only 8 week old. We had her on 5 different formulas.
Nothing helped her but prosobee and zantac. She would scream form 6pm to 2am every night. And she would never sleep. Nutramigen is very easy to digest and your baby will have runny poops. Their digestive system is still delevoping. your baby may have gas pains too. Hope gets it very bad at times. Keep your baby on prosobee for at least a week to see how your baby does.
GAs drops work sometimes. If not try a heating pad for 20 mins and work the legs.

If you need more help PM me. I still am going through it and its been 7 weeks.

[Blessed]

DS was on Alimentum for a while and had those awful runny poops too. We tried switching him to soy, and he did fine for 2 days, but on the third day he had a terrible screaming episode. It seemed like he was having really bad gas pains, so we switched him back to Alimentum. A few weeks later we had him tested for allergies and found that he was allergic to milk but not soy, so the doctor told us to go back to soy, but this time do it gradually. She explained that the sudden change from Alimentum (which takes virtually no effort to digest) to soy just overwhelmed his system. The intestines produce different enzymes to digest different foods, and when the food isn't present, the enzyme isn't produced. By introducing the new formula just a little bit at a time, it gives the intestines a chance to start producing the necessary enzymes so they don't get the terrible tummy ache! It made perfectly good sense the way she explained it, so we did it that way and had no trouble whatsoever. :)

About the poop thing, DS used to fuss and cry every time he had to go. Our pediatrician said that they actually have to "learn" to poop, if you can believe that. There's a series of muscles they have to learn to control in a certain sequence, and they often do the exact opposite of what they need to do. To get him through that stage, we gave him a teaspoon of dark Karo syrup in his bottle once or twice a day until he got "regular", and then gradually reduced the amount we were giving him. Ever since he "learned" how to go, he hasn't had any trouble. :)

[peanut]

Hi Carol-

Few questions-tomorrow is my follow up gi appt. and my baby still seems to be in pain at times after eating (esp. at night). He is still gaining good weight so the gi may just increase the prilosec. His condition seems to have imrpoved somehwat but its really hard to tell. He still cries alot and sticks his fist in his mouth right after eating. Did you to the esophogram (is that what its called)-i think this may be the next step and I need to know how painful is it for the baby? My baby's father now wants a say in this and he doesnt believe Grayson is in alot of pain to warrant this test. Mind you-he only takes the baby one night (sat). Is this test done to just test for structural damage or did you do the upper gi? I just dont know at this point what to do. Thanks!!

[Blessed]

Our GI never ran any kinds of tests on Thomas, so I can't tell you what either of the ones you mentioned are like. If the medication seems to be helping, I'd be pushing for a higher dosage before submitting him to any kind of invasive testing. Isn't he on a very low dosage now, plus Zantac? Why doesn't he just drop the Zantac and just go with a standard dosage of Prilosec? :confused: I don't know how much your baby weighs, but to give you an idea, Thomas' first Rx for Prilosec was for 2.5 ml 2x/day, and he weighed 16 pounds at the time.

Good luck with your appointment tomorrow, and be sure and let us know how it goes! :)

[peanut]

Thanks Carol-

Grayson is on .2ml once and weighs 10 lbs. Sounds like I really need to try an increased dosage before the invasive tests. Ill let you know what happens!

[L&M's Mom]

My 2 1/2 month old has now had an upper GI and modified barium swallow. The upper GI confirmed the reflux and also showed that she had no mechanical obstructions causing the reflux. The modified barium swallow showed that she almost aspirates when the formula is too thin. I now have to thicken each bottle with about 1 teaspoon of rice cereal per ounce. Also, when they called with the results of the upper GI, I asked them to put her on Prevacid as she was refluxing worse and actually choking at times. The GI kept her on the Zantac and added Carafate. She has been on the Carafate since Saturday and what a difference!!! She is sleeping peacefully for the first time ever!!

FYI - neither the upper GI nor the modified barium swallow were difficult for my baby. They are not really invasive as they use no scopes, simply take x-rays.

[honeybunny78]

Have you tried putting rice cereal in there bottles??? Hopes doc. wanted me to do so. And she doing even better. she sleeps longer and is less cranky.:puh

[peanut]

What is Carafate and what is it used for? I went ahead and stopped all usage of the reglan and now my guy spits up a little but he doesnt seem as irratable.

[L&M's Mom]

I looked Carafate up on Medline and it is prescribed for people with gastric ulcers. In talking to some additional people, they have told me they have family members on Carafate who have bad acid reflux. It is my understanding that it coats the esophagus and stomach and actually repairs some of the damage done by the acid. It seems to be helping my baby in that she doesn't scream as much when she refluxes and stays content for longer periods of time. However, her reflux is continuing to worsen. She stays congested from it and keeps a rattle in her throat almost all the time. I am begging for her to be placed on Prevacid or Prilosec.

My Doc never put my baby on Reglan. They placed her on Bethanachol instead which does the same thing. I didn't notice any increased irritability from it.

Are you on Zantac or Prilosec?

[peanut]

Thanks for getting back to me. Grayson is on 2ml of prilosec a day (which I dont think is enough) and .5ml of Zantac, once at night. At the beginning all he was given was Zantac (and alot of it!!) which didnt seem to help. The prilosec really seems to work but my baby can still be irratable all day-he ust doesnt make that horrible screech after eating and look like hes in p0ain or has that rattling in his nose like your talking about. The only thing I see is a little bit of spitup now (maybe thats because I stopped the reglan) and also, my baby wants to eat ALL THE TIME, which I guess is common in reflux babies. My doctor wants me to wait every 3 hour to feed him and then only 4 ounces at a time. Hes almost 13 lbs. I dont know if this is too little but I can tell you my baby wants MORE!!!

[L&M's Mom]

Are you adding rice cereal to the formula? My Pedi told me I could add 1-2 teaspoons per ounce. After the swallowing study, they told me to add 3/4 teaspoon per ounce which is now what I am doing. Though that is to help keep her from refluxing, the therapist said it would also help with the reflux. That might help some with the hunger. My baby is 3 months old and eats every 3 hours - 4.5 ounces with the rice cereal At her 10 p.m. and middle of the night bottles, I give her only 3 ounces to try to help control the reflux.

I'm glad the prilosec helped your baby. I'm going to ask for that for mine. The nose stuffiness and rattle in her throat really bother me.

When my baby's stomach was hurting her, she wanted to eat all the time as well. Since I placed her on the soy formula and off the Nutramigen, that seems to be better. I also tide her over sometimes with a little white grape juice. Babies with colic don't do well with apple juice. So I mix 2 ounces of grape juice and 2 ounces of water. At 2 months of age, it is supposed to be ok to give them juice. You might try that to help tide yours over until feeding time.

Good Luck!!

L&M's Mom

[peanut]

Yes, the rice cereal is added after i have put it in the blender for a few seconds to make it fine. Ill have to try the grape juice-its so hard for me not to feed him when he seems so hungry but i think hes turning into a chunky monkey! Have you ever heard about giving your baby 1 tablespoon of yellow veges? My nanny suggested that. My baby is like yours, 3 months old and now hes probably 13 lbs.

[L&M's Mom]

I'll have to check on the veggies thing. Seems like I started my 3 year old on bananas first because they wouldn't upset his stomach. I'm pretty sure by four months you can start the veggies - one at a time for 3 days or so to make sure there is no allergic reaction. I'll try to call the ladies that took care of my 3 year old when he was a baby. They have been caring for kids for 20 + years and are awesome. I started everything when they told me to with him.

I know part of the reason that foods are started at 4 months is because that is when the baby loses its tongue reflex where it pushes the spoon and food out of it's mouth. Also, some Drs. will tell you not to start solids until 6 months but I know I didn't wait that long with my son. I have already started spoon feeding my baby some to get her used to it. With my son, I started spoon feeding the rice cereal. You mix it in a bowl with the warmed milk and then feed the remainder of the milk out of the bottle. I'd start with about 2 teaspoons of cereal and enough milk to make it thin, pasty consistency. Then you can add bananas to the cereal and milk - makes it taste good and they eat it even better. You might try that for a few days. Have patience with the spoon. What I do when she doesn't swallow it is I'll put a bite in and then give her a drink out of her bottle to wash it down.

My daughter probably weighs around 12 or more pounds right now. We have to put so much rice cereal in each bottle, she is a little chunk as well. We have no choice, though with her swallowing problem.

Before that was diagnosed, I was putting 2 teaspoons cereal in each bottle except for her lunch bottle and the one right before she went to sleep. On those, I would put around 5 or 6 teaspoons to make it like a meal. Of course, you have to have nipples for those feedings with bigger openings. But you might also try that. That way he is not getting huge feedings each time so as to stretch his stomach but he is getting "meals" like we do.

Good luck!!!

L&M's Mom

[honeybunny78]

~L&M~

We also have to make Hopes formula with alot of cereal in it too. Very slushy like. It helps alot. She can go up to 10 hours before she wants to eat again. Which means she is sleeping through the night.

I started Alyssia on Applesauce for a week. At 3 months.

[L&M's Mom]

How old is Hope and how much formula do you feed her at a time. I think our record for sleep is 6 hours. Mine is 3 months old and I usually feed her around 10 p.m. She wakes between 2 and 4 am and then again around 6 or 7 am. Really not too bad but, oh what I would give for 10 hours straight sleep time!!!

[honeybunny78]

~L&M~

Hope is 10 weeks old. She can slam down 6 oz. at a time. We feed her at 11pm and she goes until 7am. Or longer.

[peanut]

Right now I use 4 teaspoons of rice cereal with 4 ounces of carnation g.s. Would you suggest putting in more rice and how much? My gi follow up is in two weeks but as it is, he says im overfeeding my guy. Hey, he eats, hes hungry!!! Ill have to ask my ped. re: the applesauce. Im hoping that once hes on solids the reflux will go away.

[Blessed]

When you do start spoonfeeding him, you might want to try cereal with a little banana mixed in. Stay away from apples -- they're too acidic for refluxers. (We learned the hard way about apples. I used to try to give Thomas his meds in apple juice and he'd scream for 20 minutes afterwards. That's when the doctor finally told me that apples are highly acidic.) Our pediatrician recommended that we hold off on fruits until he outgrows the reflux because of the acidity. Bananas seem to be okay though, and he loves vegetables.

[peanut]

Carol, please bear with me (since I havent got a clue what comes next), when you say cereal, what type and how do i prepareit? Do i use fresh bananas or baby bottled bananas and how much do i mix in together? Then I hold the teaspoon to his mouth? How many teaspoons and does this take the place of a bottle?

ps i never had even held a baby until i got my little one

[Blessed]

Thomas wasn't one of those babies who took right to cereal -- it took some effort, so I can totally relate. First off, when your baby is just starting solids, you shouldn't decrease the amount of formula you're giving him at all.

For starters, you probably only want to start with about a tsp. of dry rice cereal (Gerber, Beechnut, whatever) and mix it with a little formula. I can't tell you exactly how much, it's something you just have to experiment with until you get the right consistency. You want it pretty thin at first. I usually tried to get it just runny enough so that it runs off the spoon easily. Since your baby is on CGS, he may like it just like that. (CGS tastes a lot better than soy -- I think that's part of the reason Thomas didn't like cereal at first.) But if he doesn't, you can stir in a spoonful of banana. Just enough to give it some flavor. And you can use the stuff out of the jar or you can just mash up a little bit of fresh banana with a fork. Either will work just fine. But when you put it in the cereal, you may need to add a little more formula to the mixture to keep it thin enough.

We had our best luck feeding Thomas around mid-morning when he was well rested, happy, and <i>not</i> hungry. I'd let him have about 4 oz. of formula and leave about 2 oz. in the bottle. You don't want him to be <i>hungry</i> when you feed him because he'll just get frustrated and mad because you're not filling his tummy fast enough.

Be sure you use a little baby spoon -- those little plastic coated ones are great. A regular teaspoon would be way too big. A friend of mine showed me this wonderful "technique" for spoon feeding a baby. It's hard to describe, but you kind of place the spoon on top of the baby's tongue and let the food run off as you back the spoon out. At first, he's probably going to be pushing the food right back out. He's not really spitting it out, that's just the way they work at this stage. They have a tongue thrust reflex that pushes out anything that's not liquid. Just be patient and he'll eventually get the hang of it.

For the first few days I'd be satisfied if I just got a spoonful or two in him. And for the first couple of weeks I'd give him a couple of spoonfuls of cereal, then a sip of bottle, more cereal, more bottle, and so on. Alternating between cereal and formula worked great.

Good luck with it, and just remember to be patient. :)

(After all that, just watch -- yours will be one of those babies that takes right to it!) :D

[peanut]

Thanks again as always Carol, my dear teacher.xoxo

[Blessed]

Happy to help! :)

[Jan]

Hi in the UK all babies are weaned at 3 months. Our hospital actually told us to start weaning Jade at just 10 weeks to see if it helped her reflux.

There is a lot of difference between the USA and the UK not just with what we do and when with our babies but also the drugs etc Here we aren't told to thicken formula with rice etc.

We do it either by a prethickened formula, which many of our formula companies make now. I'm not sure if you have the same ones where you are. SMA have recently brought out a milk especially aimed at babies with reflux. As it is new here, I haven't heard much about it yet.

In our case every milk feed, whether by breast or formula has been thickened by Infant Gaviscon since she was 3 weeks old. From the say Jade started this, almost all of her vomiting stopped instantly. I know of parents in the USA that do this also with Gaviscon. But I am not sure how they are told to do this and really you should ask your doctors anyway.

Gaviscon coats the oesophagus all the way down. It then lays on top of the stomach contents making it really hard for acids etc to come back up again.

Carobel I believe also thickens formula and many babies find this easier than Infant Gaviscon.

A mother told me recently that her hospital had told her when changing formula to a soya formula to do 50/50. That means for example, 2oz ordinary formula and 2oz soya formula. I hadn't heard of this before but it sounds like a very good idea to try to me.

In our case we didn't change formulas for Jade. At one point we were going to try but our doctor was afraid that Jade was refluxing so much at the time that changing the formula could really aggravate her reflux even more.

Jade also has Domeperidone which isn't available in the USA. This is a motility drug. It speeds up the intestines so that food travels through their system a lot quicker. At the time she started it she was choking and I mean really choking so many times a day and night. This stopped on Domperidone luckily.

I shall embarrass myself now by trying to spell an anti biotic, Erythrimisin (sp?) is also used all over the world as a motility drug.

Jan

[peanut]

Jan-

Isnt reglan used here in the us as the motility drug and if so, what do you think about it?

[L&M's Mom]

That is what Reglan is. Bethanachol is also a motility drug with less side effects than Reglan.