I posted a few weeks back about how we started having challenging nights with Vivienne due to her constant grunting/whining/straining sounds. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at the time—some babies are just noisy sleepers, and I thought it was just a part of her—but I also thought that MAYBE there was something else going on. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was grunting like that because she was uncomfortable. That, coupled with her propensity for spitting up A TON every day, led me to question whether she had some reflux going on.
As I’ve since learned from lots and lots of Googling, MOST babies have reflux. Nora had reflux. Any baby that spits up has reflux. But some babies have reflux that HURTS them… so it needs to be/can be treated.
A few weeks ago, we had a particularly challenging couple of nights again, and Vivienne was spitting up SO.MUCH. Up to five outfits a day. Too many burp cloths to count. I had actually resorted to using flannel swaddle blankets as burp rags because I needed something BIGGER. And every morning, her swaddle blanket and the burp rag—which I’ve grown accustomed to putting under her head any time she’s lying down—would be SOAKED and/or crusty with old spit-up. I finally broke down and called the pediatrician’s office and they asked me a lot of questions about Vivienne’s demeanor, the manner of the spit up, etc. At the time, they said that it sounded like Vivienne was borderline. Like MAYBE she has the kind of reflux that should be treated, but maybe she’s just a normal, yet especially spitty, baby.
So we gave it more time.
Last weekend, when we were in the Poconos with my family for a wedding, I had other people who could be witness to what we’ve been experiencing. My mom and sisters-in-law saw her repeatedly projectile spit-up—on me, on the floor, on everything—and they shared my gut feeling that this just wasn’t right. Plus, the fussiness. My poor baby definitely seemed uncomfortable, particularly in the evenings. In fact, when we went to the wedding on Saturday night, Marie’s sister watched the kids for us, and Vivienne basically screamed for two hours straight. Awesome.
The tough part is that Vivienne’s now at the age when newborns will be newborns—and evening “witching hours” are common. So I still questioned myself: Was she fussy because she’s a baby, or was she fussy because of reflux?
We had an appointment with our pediatrician on Wednesday for Nora’s 3-year well child visit. (Nora’s 30 lbs. and 36 3/8″ tall, by the way. Healthy, happy, growing girl. Yay!) While we were there, our doctor said to me, “Why do I feel like I read something about Vivienne? You called about something recently, didn’t you?” I reminded her that I had called a few weeks back with questions/concerns about reflux. She asked me how it was going and I told her that I still had suspicions. She talked to me about it and agreed that what we’re experiencing with Vivienne might not be normal. She suggested that we go ahead and try reflux meds. Worst case, they don’t make any difference and after a few weeks, we’ll just discontinue them.
She had me go ahead and get Vivienne undressed and weigh her—we hijacked Nora’s appointment for a few minutes, oops!—and the GREAT news is that if Vivienne does in fact have reflux, it is certainly not affecting her growth. AT ALL. Vivienne weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs., 4 oz., which is huge to me when you consider that Nora was only 9.5 lbs. at 2 months old and this is Vivienne at 6 weeks. :) Anyway, the weight helped the doctor determine accurate dosage for the Zantac, and she handed us a prescription.
We moved on to Nora’s portion of the appointment. But during that time, Vivienne also did a good job of “demonstrating” her reflux to the pediatrician. First, she spit-up, and with a bit of force. Projectile, but mild in comparison to some of her “episodes”! Then, we were talking about Nora when suddenly Vivienne coughed/choked. Our doctor looked at us and said, “Yes. I really think meds are going to help her.” It was reassuring to me that our doctor got to see these things happen first hand, because it only helped to solidify the potential diagnosis and give me peace of mind about trying these meds with Vivienne.
Anyway, we’re not quite at the 48-hour mark yet, but Vivienne’s received two doses of the meds per day, and I dare say… I think we’re seeing an improvement. In fact, she seems to even be spitting up less, which isn’t even what the meds are supposed to do—they’re supposed to reduce the acidity in the stomach to simply make the reflux more COMFORTABLE, not necessarily suppress it altogether. But the doctor mentioned that other parents do report that the meds sometimes reduce spit-up, too, so… bonus?
We’ll see what happens with time!
Any other reflux parents out there? What were your experiences? How long did your baby have to be on the meds before you were able to wean him/her off?
12 Responses to Reflux-ology
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About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
My oldest had reflux that sounds very similar, and it took us much longer for the Dr to prescribe Zantac. Unfortunately, it didn’t work well for her and we had to move on to Prilosec, which worked wonders. She was on the Prilosec from 6-14 months.
Oh boy…I could write a book on reflux. The first 6ish weeks of my son Jaxson’s life were hell. I suspected something wasn’t right when he was a week old and mentioned it to the dr. They told us he wasn’t exhibiting the signs of reflux because he was eating like a champ and gaining weight. They defined him as a “happy spitter”, which I agreed in the beginning because he was relatively happy…except at night time, but I was chalking the night time fussiness to overstimulation and just general fussiness.
Well it got progressively worse. The spitting up was annoying, but I could deal with that. The crying and fussiness were awful. It was tiring, exhausting, and my heart broke for him when I couldn’t do anything to console him. When the dr did put him on medicine, we were on Zantact at first…right around 5 weeks old. He told us to give it a week and if necessary they would up the dose and try another week. Well I got really hopeful because I did notice a difference. It still wasn’t great, but I felt like it was better. All of a sudden it got worse and the Zantac wasn’t cutting it. The dr put my son on Prevacid and that was our miracle drug.
Prevacid is a little annoying because it comes in a tablet that you have to dissolve in water. Plus with our dosage, I had to cut the tablet in half. It was a 15mg tablet, but my son was only getting 7.5mg twice a day. However, I was so grateful that we found something that worked and I finally had a happy/content baby. I felt the stress dissipate a little. But with the medicine came new stress, we had to give the medicine on an empty stomach and wait 30 minutes before eating. So imagine trying to plan that out twice a day…ugh.
We eventually began to wean Prevacid at 4 months old. We dropped to one dose at 7.5mg a day. That was a big fat fail. The first 2 days went great. Day 3 was hell and by day 4 I called the dr back up and we went back on medicine. I think we successfully began the weaning process around 7-8 months old. We went down to 7.5mg once a day. Eventually did 7.5 mg every other day and then just stopped. I believe he was completely weaned by 9 months.
I am grateful what Prevacid did for us. It was life changing for us and our baby. Prevacid did not stop the spit up (it did reduce it slightly) so we still went through many many bibs and outfits and receiving blankets (those were our best friend because burp cloths were too small). We started cereal at 4 months and that seemed to help reduce the spit up too. The other thing that was big for us when we started using bottles was using the Dr. Brown bottles. That stunk because I had TONS of Tommee Tippee bottles, but the Dr. Brown bottles seemed to actually reduce the gas he was having and reduce the spit up. Something you may want to consider.
If you want to vent about this or need any more tips feel free to reply and I will email you. Sorry for writing a book…
Jackson had AWFUL reflux, ended up in the hospital because he stopped eating. So glad you started meds when you did, our dr. and gastro specialsts had us trying everything EXCEPT meds, and it got so bad Jackson began refusing to eat because it hurt. Thus the 4-day hosptial stay. So glad you’re taking care of it now!
Liam suffered from reflux pretty bad as a baby. He was also put on medication for it after an episode where it actually choked him! He went limp for a few seconds in Chris’s mothers arms and we brought him to the ER and after lots of questions and tests realized he had a bad case of “the flux”. (That’s what the cool kids are calling it these days). The medication did show an improvement for sure and we were able to take him off of it after a few weeks. We also got him one of those cheese wedges to prop his head up when he sleeps (we still use it under the pillow).
My second child had “silent reflux”. It was only silent because she wouldn’t actually spit up but she would choke and scream bloody murder for like 3+ hours a night unless I was bouncing her in the bjorn. She got on the meds and was better within a few days. I feel like she was on until she started solids at 6 months, we ebf. It saved my sanity and she was so much more comfortable and even slept better. Hope it works!
We struggled with reflux with our daughter last year. She would stay up all night screaming. It was tiring. I would wake up to smell vomit but never see any. Our doctor put her on zantac which was not successful in managing her reflux. It took several trips to the doctor to figure out she needs to be switched to prilosec (omerprazole). She was also switched to soy milk. Our lives got way better after that. No more screaming from 10 pm to 6 am. Of course she lived upright in the rock and play at night but ir was so mich better. So if zantac doesnt work maybe try prilosec. Good luck.
We are going through it right now. It’s terrible. My baby is a few weeks older than yours. We tried Zantac for two weeks with two different doses. No help. Now, we are on Prevacid and just increased the dose this week to see if it helps. She had an hour plus long screaming fit last night though :( poor thing wanted to eat and it just hurt! I really just want to find a medicine that will help her. The doctor said we could try Pepcid next, but I’m losing hope at this point. Hope Zantac works for her!
Also, many reflux babies gain weight well. Eating helps soothe their throat. My daughter is in the 95th percentile at 2 months.
Connor had reflux similar to what you are describing. He was on Zantac for 6 months and is now 10 months old with no trouble at all!
Oh goodness, it can be really scary to have reflux in a Newborn. My 2nd son had GERD and had to be medicated as well with Aciphex. It cut it down to about 1/2 of what it was, which was great because he was doing the same as her but worse. I couldn’t even keep clothes on him he was throwing up so much. It also didn’t affect his weight. That stuff was so gross even for him flavored. bleh. He had to sleep at an incline for he was spitting up so much like her he started coughing and I did not want him to aspirate and die. That happened to an Uncle when we was born. He slept in a Nap nanny till about 5 months when he was completely passed it. My daughter has it a little bit, but nothing like him. I keep her in the Nap Nanny now as well (she is almost 12 weeks old).
have you looked into cutting diary out of your diet. There are many studies that show a intolerance to diary causing reflux in many babies.
My daughter had reflux too. Good news though, although it seems like a huge hurdle to overcome and have to deal with right now, they do overcome it. Hers is completely gone now.
My daughter actually turned blue in the hospital while my husband was giving her a bottle (my milk was coming in). So thankful that the nurse was there and saw what was happening and got her to breathe. The fact that she was only 3 days old and already having feeding issues was so scary. I was a bit traumatized by that for sure. I cried in the hospital that night, and asked the night nurses if it happened again while they fed her, and they said that it did. We went home discharged with no diagnosis however.
A few weeks into her being home, she was doing fine feeding but we did notice she would gasp when she drank. She was also really hard to burp w/o spitting a ton up. Then after she BF one day she fell asleep. I let her sleep on the pillow, but then noticed she wasn’t breathing. She was holding her breath probably because it hurt. I freaked out of course and blew air into her lungs pounded her back and she let out a HUGE burp and was fine. I still called the Dr and we took her ER to be observed. They performed the X-Ray where she drank the white chalk stuff and diagnosed her right away with reflux.
She was put on Prilosec and that helped a lot. We had to keep her upright for 30 mins after feeding, which seriously takes up a lot of time. It seemed like my whole life revolved around feeding her and watching her sleep to make sure she didn’t choke. The Boppy lounger was awesome because she could nap in it (with me watching her) at an incline. We also inclined her bed until she became so active sleeping that she would roll off it. We also got the Angelcare monitor to detect movement. It’s more of a peace of mind monitor but I was glad I had it to alert me if anything happened because I was so tired!
Reflux was a huge thing for me and daycare. I was so OCD about how they fed her, giving detailed instructions etc, but relieved to find out they had experience in reflux. I don’t think I was ever so anxious in my life when I wasn’t with her.
We also took our daughter to a Pediatric Gastro. She was great. She had me completely eliminate dairy from my diet and that also helped my daughter with less spitting up. I remember one night reading on the internet to cut dairy and tried it for a day, not noticing a difference. So back to milk I went, and then my daughter screamed for a whole day. So it definitely helped. It was so hard to do and very limiting in diet. Almost every convenience food has dairy in it. Chocolate Soy milk became my dessert. On the plus side I shed some lbs :)
Around a year we noticed she had a lot less “gasps” after eating, less choking. She also had started solids. So the dr. took her off the medicine and she is fine now. She still “gasps” when drinking big gulps, but I think it was something she did so frequently she just does it automatically now.