Reflux???

Hi all,

I am hoping that anyone who has been in a similar situation can share their experiences with me, as I feel quite frustrated & confused at the moment...

I have an 8 week old daughter who I breast and bottle fed from birth (I was not making enough breast milk for her & was constantly having to give her top up feeds, she was a 10lb 6oz baby). I stopped breastfeeding at 2 weeks as it just wasn't working. At about 8 days old she developed what the paed believed to be reflux. We put her on an AR formula & Zantac and it settled down somewhat. Paed had us stop using Zantac at 4 weeks. She has always been a spewy baby but in the last 2 weeks it has gotten worse again. On the advise of my chiro I tried a soy formula which worked wonderfully for one day, then the vomiting started again with a vengeance the next day. I have given it 3 days now on the soy, hoping it would settle but it hasnt. I'm going back to the AR formula next feed as even though she still throws up on it, its lesser amounts & it seems to stay down a little easier.

I am wondering if anyone else has had a situation similar to this & what they experienced.

Thanks heaps in advance :)

Can I suggest that you try Dr Brown's airflow bottles. I swear by them.
Alana had slight reflux. We were suggested by a GP to try mylanta and thickened formula. It did nothing. We swapped her bottles over and we haven't looked back.

If you want some more info I can email you some websites where you can buy them.

Hi mel! Matilda is a reflux baby and we had a hard time settling her down with it. We used the HA-Ar formula because the AR itself didn't do much and the HA is a pre digested formula so its absorbed quicker into their system and there isn't much left to vomit. Matilda was on zantac for 4 months. The mylanta helped for a few weeks, but then not as well. Have you done all the positioning things? I found that making sure she slept in an upward tilt made huge changes as well as using a sling to keep her upright after a feed. I've heard from the reflux society in Brissy that hammocks are lifesavers...maybe worth researching & renting one for a while.

I hope that helps!! Let us know how you go!

Thanks heaps for your replies :)

Iris - I haven't heard of Dr Brown's bottles .. I would like to have a look at them though, so could you please let me know where I can buy them? Thanks heaps :)

Christy - I currently have her sitting up after feeds, and have her crib tilted, all that stuff :) thanks for the info about the HA formula, I didn't know there was an AR version of it, and wasn't sure what the HA bit was about anyway lol, so thanks for letting me know what it is! I will look into the hammocks too.

Thanks heaps for your advise ladies. I'm willing to give anything a go at the moment! lol.

oh I know how you feel Mel...any advice given to me about reflux I would try for a few days to see if it worked for us! :D I wish you the best on this journey, and *hugs* its really hard on us mums. I found support from here and from the reflux society (they have one in all major Australian cities) and also from Riverton an early childhood centre where you go and stay for 5 days...sort of like a sleep school but I mainly got help in understand reflux and what to do now. I got heaps of tips from the other mums there whose bubs had reflux.

Matilda would be good a few days and then have a really bad day and then back to good... until around 5 months and then she had a bad few weeks and then it seemed to dissappear. HTH!!!

Iris - Don't worry bout the info about the Dr Brown's bottles, I popped down to Baby Rascals this morning & picked up 2, we'll see how we go next feed with them :)

Christy - Thanks for your words, its nice to have somewhere to come & read others' experiences & get support from people who have been there before such as you girls. I'm willing to try anything to help ease this for my daughter & my own sanity lol. I guess I don't have anything much to complain about, there are mums out there dealing with alot worse reflux than what I am! But honestly, I don't know what to call my daughter's reflux cos I've had no experience with reflux babies before. All I know is that she vomits after each feed about 3-4 times, then occasionally even up to 2 hours after a feed she will still vomit. Thankfully there are not many projectile vomits while I have her on the AR formula. I am going to give the bottles a go & also give the HA-AR formula a go too. I didn't know that they have the place like sleep school for reflux too! I guess the main thing I can do is just hope she grows out of it soon!

Thanks again for your replies :)