Acid reflux - going insane

lawrencesummers

Dravokivich wrote: »

And it's the very thing you are doing. I expect this response was done as I updated my previous response. Please refrain from promoting Osteopathy any further.

I’m not promoting anything, and have said as much, I’m outlining my experiences of dealing with reflux In my kids to the OP, and I have always posted the caveat that osteopathic treatment isn’t for everyone or everything. .

lawrencesummers

Dravokivich wrote: »

Which is their job. Osteopaths are not trained medical professionals, you won't get a doctor sending you to one.



Sounds like what you needed was regular stretching and massages.



It needs to work for the kid, not for you. Don't put them through that, so you can feel better that you are trying to do something.

MOD

No promoting of Osteopathy will be permitted here. When unsure, a person should always seek advise from a Doctor.

I’m not sure how to reply to this, I brought my kid to an osteopath to help the issue they were having. What is it you think I put them through?

Dravokivich

lawrencesummers wrote: »

I’m not sure how to reply to this, I brought my kid to an osteopath to help the issue they were having. What is it you think I put them through?

If you don't know how to reply, then don't. You've already been carded for persisting with promoting this.

Stop or be stopped.

Your call.

lawrencesummers

Dravokivich wrote: »

If you don't know how to reply, then don't. You've already been carded for persisting with promoting this.

Stop or be stopped.

Your call.

You should learn the difference between someone giving their experience of something which is positive and promoting something?

Il help.

Suppose I came on and said I had a good meal in restaurant X. That’s experience.

If I came on here and said restaurant X is the best restaurant in the world and great value. That’s promotion.


I didn’t think I would have to explain that to a MOD

shesty

Is the baby on Aptamil? Have you tried any other brand of formula? (never mind thickened, Pepti etc. for a minute)
Have been through variations on a theme of this with 3 of mine, so I do have a reason for asking.

Gosh, it was the hardest thing I went through with my son. Spent 6 months puking up on me. Now.....it does pass....and you WILL GET THROUGH THIS.

I tried everything and didnt get a real resolution to be honest rather than the child maturity around 6 months. It simply stopped.

Try to give each other breaks from the baby, sorry sounds harsh but it it can impact your mental health. Take turns, know it's ok to feel overwhelmed, tired, frustrated, upset that its not the perfect situation you anticipated.

My hubby used to carry my son in a baby Bjorn sling, it was the only 20mins I had to myself each day.

Acceptance it part if it too I'm afraid. So keeps loads of clothes around and frequent changes of clothes. Keep calm and know that things will get better.

krissovo

Sunnyspot wrote: »

My hubby used to carry my son in a baby Bjorn sling, it was the only 20mins I had to myself each day.

This is how I bonded with my Son properly and you just brought back a really nice memory, we had a red baby Bjorn sling and I would carry him around to give my wife a break for what I thought was hours but probably only only 30 minutes or so.

I just remembered the bumbo seat also really helped us with the reflux as the child was upright. As long as we were "entertaining" like cleaning floors or making dinner our kids were quite happy in bumbo.

The Mighty Quinn

OP here.

Sorry for starting the osteopath debate... But to the person who asked why we don't bring her to a doctor, we have, many times, and we've just had 3 days in hospital with her this week as well. The osteopath was just something else to try do something, anything that helps in any way, not a replacement for medical doctors.

Consultants we saw in recent days in a paediatric ward were excellent.

fits

The Mighty Quinn wrote: »

OP here.

Sorry for starting the osteopath debate... But to the person who asked why we don't bring her to a doctor, we have, many times, and we've just had 3 days in hospital with her this week as well. The osteopath was just something else to try do something, anything that helps in any way, not a replacement for medical doctors.

Consultants we saw in recent days in a paediatric ward were excellent.

Oh Im glad you're being seen. I hate the 'they'll grow out of it'.

In my case there was an explanation but we didn't find that out until he was over 2. He has a condition which would have caused the reflux. Its very rare though, and there are many possible explanations and sometimes parents never find out what that is.

fits

fits wrote: »

Oh Im glad you're being seen. I hate the 'they'll grow out of it'.

Unfortunately that can often be the reality, as there is only so much investigation you can do with a newborn. Its exhausting dealing with it and equally frustrating with the lack of answers. What can then happen is your trying something, it works, but often its relative to the age of the baby.

Glad you found a good Peds doctor OP and good luck with everything.

fits

Sunnyspot wrote: »

Unfortunately that can often be the reality, as there is only so much investigation you can do with a newborn. Its exhausting dealing with it and equally frustrating with the lack of answers. What can then happen is your trying something, it works, but often its relative to the age of the baby.

.

No they know something might be up but they have no way of telling what that might be.

Outkast_IRE

Currently in the middle of a battle with Acid Reflux and our 3 month old son at the moment.

Literally impossible for the child to sleep on the flat or a slight tilt for more than 30 mins without reflux waking him and keeping him awake till the next feed.

He will sleep slightly better in our arms or in a semi inclined position which after 3 months we are having to do due to sleep deprivation of him and us.

It is literally the hardest thing we have had to go through in our life and we are just grinding on in the belief it will come right in a month or two or three. The way we feel now would put you off having any more kids, we are in the unfortunate position of having zero family support due to distance and covid.

The doctor prescribed losec 10 days ago which has lessened the acidity of the reflux but he still wakes all the time with it. We tried using carobel to thicken his expressed breast milk but his bowel movments have gone very strange with one large thick poo a day. Since he started the losec he seems more prone to inconsolable bouts of crying / screaming so we are unsure if its related to the losec or just his age.

Hard to know what to do at this stage. The sleep deprivation is a killer , the only way we have survived is by splitting the night in two and taking turns sleeping in the spare room so we get at least 4 hours solid each and if we are luck might get an hour with the baby the odd night.

The Mighty Quinn

Are you me from 6 months ago? :eek:

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

It is literally the hardest thing we have had to go through in our life and we are just grinding on in the belief it will come right in a month or two or three. The way we feel now would put you off having any more kids, we are in the unfortunate position of having zero family support due to distance and covid.

I was the exact same. At the time it was the most intense and difficult part of my life. Looking back it's a relatively short period, but it felt an eternity. No escaping it. I used to sometimes be lucky enough to get out for a walk with the dogs for 20 minutes and getting back to front door of house I'd nearly be in tears myself walking back in to the house listening to the baby still screaming. For months.

No more children, one is enough. That's what I said, and I meant it. Baby is now 9 months old and my wife is 14 weeks pregnant. My family live hours away, and hers an hour away. So we had zero family support either. Three of us locked in the house going insane. I absolutely feel for you because I know it well.

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

The doctor prescribed losec 10 days ago which has lessened the acidity of the reflux but he still wakes all the time with it. We tried using carobel to thicken his expressed breast milk but his bowel movments have gone very strange with one large thick poo a day. Since he started the losec he seems more prone to inconsolable bouts of crying / screaming so we are unsure if its related to the losec or just his age.

My daughter was prescribed Losec, and at first nothing seemed to be happening. We had the tablet first, crushed with a spoon, mixed with cooled boiled water and given a few ml of it. It was so bitter she wouldn't take it. We switched to (very expensive) liquid version of it. Easier get it, but needed to be kept in fridge and dumped after 4 weeks, even though it was only about 1/3 of the bottle used, and the efficacy of the medicine waned in last week. Back to tablets, was on a full 10mg tablet a day. After maybe a month, it gave us our life. Baby stopped crying, smiled for first time. I cannot describe the relief of it.

We also use carobel. It made nappies... unpretty! Once she got on solids by 6 months, it made nappies more normal.

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

The only way we have survived is by splitting the night in two and taking turns sleeping in the spare room so we get at least 4 hours solid each and if we are luck might get an hour with the baby the odd night.

We did this after a while to try cope with it. Praying baby #2 doesn't have acid reflux, because baby #1 is in the spare room. There's no way out now, no splitting rooms for a sleep!

Best of luck with it, keep going.

thomas anderson.

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Currently in the middle of a battle with Acid Reflux and our 3 month old son at the moment.

Literally impossible for the child to sleep on the flat or a slight tilt for more than 30 mins without reflux waking him and keeping him awake till the next feed.

He will sleep slightly better in our arms or in a semi inclined position which after 3 months we are having to do due to sleep deprivation of him and us.

It is literally the hardest thing we have had to go through in our life and we are just grinding on in the belief it will come right in a month or two or three. The way we feel now would put you off having any more kids, we are in the unfortunate position of having zero family support due to distance and covid.

The doctor prescribed losec 10 days ago which has lessened the acidity of the reflux but he still wakes all the time with it. We tried using carobel to thicken his expressed breast milk but his bowel movments have gone very strange with one large thick poo a day. Since he started the losec he seems more prone to inconsolable bouts of crying / screaming so we are unsure if its related to the losec or just his age.

Hard to know what to do at this stage. The sleep deprivation is a killer , the only way we have survived is by splitting the night in two and taking turns sleeping in the spare room so we get at least 4 hours solid each and if we are luck might get an hour with the baby the odd night.

Whenever this thread pops back up it brings back the memories of screaming and pacing the hallway, for months on end. It was the reflux that has persuaded me not to have another kid, there is no way I would have the strength to go through it again.

Losec calmed things down a bit, we would have to dissolve a tab in a syringe and feed it to her 30 mins before her first bottle in the morning. I was fortunate enough to have to go to work, the wife had a terrible time as she was breastfeeding. I'm ashamed to say I nearly fell asleep behind the wheel on one occasion.

But every cloud has a silver lining and once we hit the 6 month mark, it all just kind of went away. She started feeding properly and then sleeping through the night (ref. Lucy Wolfe). Now its all becoming a distant memory but the scars are still there.

Just hold on buddy, I know it all seems pretty dark at the moment but this too will pass

shesty

Things I have learned since having children :D


My first had silent reflux. She slept at night alright but not one bit during the day. We had her on SMA, then a few others and eventually settled on SMA Comfort. Doctor prescribed liquid Zantac which lessens the acidity, and it definitely helped. She was on that for just over a year, and you could still hear her swallowing back down a lot, but it wasn't burning her, which was a relief.


Car seats, don't put them in it right after a feed. Prams were out the window, we got an infant insert for our buggy when she was 8 weeks old, and put her in the buggy seat, with it tipped up one notch, so she wasn't lying completely flat. Not the scientific thing to do, but you know what, when you have a baby like that you do what you have to.She hated slings, but I subsequently used them on my next 2 kids and they definitely work. The head of the cot was propped up on 2 piles of books and she never went to sleep straight after a feed (difficult when breastfeeding). We always held her up for a good 15-20 mins after a feed. Unreal torture at 2am in the morning, but...it all passed with time:) Really. I have observed over the 3 of them that babies actually do seem to settle better when lying on their sides, but that obviously goes against medical advice so I would be cautious of it - I did sometimes settle mine on their sides if things were really bad, with tightly rolled blankets in front and behind them to prevent them from rotating, and then I would gently roll them on their backs when they were fully asleep, but as I said, I would be extremely careful in doing that.


Husband also declared no more children. Babies 2 and 3 arrived - no reflux. Terribly windy babies, but no reflux. SMA definitely worked better with them than Aptamil though, they seemed to be more comfortable with it (and this was both before and after the change of formula that Aptamil seemed to have carried out a few years ago.)



Two other observations though. We have a number of friends who all had babies at the same time and breastfed - they had the same screaming issues. Turned out that the babies were allergic/intolerant to dairy and once the mums took the dairy out of their diet, it was like a different baby. I am not recommending you go out and try this tomorrow, it takes a good 2 weeks and a lot of work to get the dairy out of the mum's system. There is obviously also a dietary impact, so I would absolutely discuss it with a GP before trying it. But it might be something to consider. My own first struggled a lot with yoghurts when weaning - we would give her baby yoghurts and she would have quite an upset stomach for a while afterwards (it used to come up quite nastily!!) so we stuck to plain natural yoghurt for a good few months, before moving her over to cow's milk and proper yoghurts at about 15 months.


It does pass. Really.
And not all babies are the same.

Outkast_IRE

Thanks for the responses, its good to hear from others who were in a similar situation.

We have stopped the carobel for now and his periods of inconsolable crying seem to have eased back, will monitor over the next few days hard to know what is the cause but prior to the carobel he rarely had bouts as frequently. It might be a case his little digestive system found it too thick for now, we can always reassess in a month.

I dont think there is any allergies or anything like that at play as his nappies up to now were quite consistent and well digested. We did get his small bit of tongue tie sorted last week and he is swallowing far less air with his feeds now . He hates being burped still but there is less air going down with it now.

The Mighty Quinn

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

We did get his small bit of tongue tie sorted last week and he is swallowing far less air with his feeds now . He hates being burped still but there is less air going down with it now.

We tried many different bottles, Tommee Tippee, Philips Avent, Nuk, Dr Brownes and settled on, and still used, the Mam anti-colic bottle, worked wonders for reducing her air intake with bottles.

All about that vented base!

shesty

I have a memory in the back of my head that you shouldn't thicken milk and give them Losec type medication at the same time, so that might be why it disagreed with him.Not sure on that though, I would have to check it.

The Mighty Quinn

Consultant we saw in the hospital gave us the carobel to use, knowing the baby was on Losec. So, maybe not necessarily an issue?

Outkast_IRE

shesty wrote: »

I have a memory in the back of my head that you shouldn't thicken milk and give them Losec type medication at the same time, so that might be why it disagreed with him.Not sure on that though, I would have to check it.

I think its the Gaviscon and the thickened milk is the issue as they both are doing similar jobs.

Losec only reduces the acidity in the stomach , it doesnt thicken or reduce occurances of reflux , just makes them less painful for baby. So can be used with a milk thickener.

Outkast_IRE

The Mighty Quinn wrote: »

We tried many different bottles, Tommee Tippee, Philips Avent, Nuk, Dr Brownes and settled on, and still used, the Mam anti-colic bottle, worked wonders for reducing her air intake with bottles.

All about that vented base!

Its the MAM bottles we use , and a doctor browns also , both are very good. He was drawing in air from his mouth / nose rather than through the bottle , so freeing up the tongue tie seems to have corrected his latch a bit and he doesnt suck in as much air. He still needs a burp , but isnt bringing up anywhere near the same amount of air.

lashes34

The Mighty Quinn wrote: »

Consultant we saw in the hospital gave us the carobel to use, knowing the baby was on Losec. So, maybe not necessarily an issue?

We used both at once

foreverandever

I can never by pass these threads as I had an awful time with my second. Weeks 2-17, if she was awake she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Not just crying. It was pre COVID so my friends, sisters, mother used come over in the evening and walk around with her to give me a break. Shows how important a tribe/community are.

I was breastfeeding- cut out dairy, no difference
Tried ranitidine (off market now) maybe helped a little bit but I think I was too nervous to stop it rather than it really helped
Tried craniosacral therapy- maybe helped a little bit and she did tend to keep her head to one side before it.

The only thing I felt helped was a probiotic called Bio Gaia- had to get it on Amazon but is recommended in the NHS. Felt it gave a bit of an improvement in 2 weeks but was difficult to source.

I will say that it was just time for us, after 17 weeks she seemed to just start improving, still crying a bit and awake most of the night but definitely more settled and over time this just kept on improving. Around 9 months she really came on.

She’s a little dote now but definitely a sensitive baby!

It’s such a hard time and even looking back on it I wonder how I survived.

The most important tip- when you really feel you can’t handle any more, put them in the cot, close the door and walk out of the room. I know they’ll keep crying but get 20 minutes to yourself, nothing will happen them, and just gather yourself

shesty

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I think its the Gaviscon and the thickened milk is the issue as they both are doing similar jobs.

Losec only reduces the acidity in the stomach , it doesnt thicken or reduce occurances of reflux , just makes them less painful for baby. So can be used with a milk thickener.

Ah that's it, yes I knew there was something that shouldn't be mixed.

screamer

Baby gaviscon is not an antacid at all. We also had awful problems with one of ours, and he was given baby gaviscon(useless), then carobel (allergic). we tried so many formulas and eventually cow and gate comfort with nuk bottles and holding him as upright as possible at feedtimes helped, but to any parent going through this, i feel your pain, its such a hard time on you and the baby.

thomas anderson.

I made up a song to sing to her while she was the tiger on a branch.

When I sing it to her now she starts bawling. I think she rememberes

farmchoice

my heart goes out to you chief, its incredibly difficult and distressing and exhausting and depressing and never ending.

also if its your first its worse, you blame yourself you question what you're doing, the stress levels effect everyone involved.

both you and your partner need to get time away from the crying and you need to get some sleep so make sure each of you gets time off each day, and arrange it so you get some uninterrupted sleep.


this will pass and the child will be fine, just fine, this has happened to millions of babies before you and will happen to millions after you.
the only people who can suffer permanent damage form this is you and your partner. take care of yourself and take special care of the babies mother, not to sound sexist but for some mothers in particular the feeling of guilt and inadequacy coupled with the exhaustion can result in people going to very dark places.


every new parent takes things very seriously most people look back on the things they did with their first and laugh at how serious and earnest they were and how much they over reacted to everything. nobody looks back at this situation and laughs i can tell you that.



by the second or third baby you are so much more experienced and relaxed about it so its never as bad even if they were to have it.