Anyone have any tips on dealing with g.e.r.d in infants. I feel at times im going to go crazy.?

my now 7 week old son was diagnosed with acid reflux at 3 weeks. We've changed his form. he gets zantac, sleeps upright...and still vomiting out mouth n nose, still crying during feedings, still fussy, STILL INPAIN. at times i get so frustrated all i can do is cry...we should be able to help these kids,....basically i want to kno does anyone have any suggestions so i dont go crazy at times i feel i can't do it any more... what helps??

btw we have tried thickning the formula...thanks anyways for those that have sugg. that

my son's breastfed but are you sure he doesn't have a whey protein issue? My son can't break the protein in cow's milk and that is even after it has been partially broken down by me-- if your son is formula fed he would be recieving even more of the protein. If I cheat and have a little bit of cheese or something I will bicycle his legs and sing "wheels on the bus" until he (pardon the term) farts and usually he will feel a little better. putting him tummy down (with head not touching so almost in a laying kneeling position) on a vibrating chair used to help too. good luck, it gets easier!

Make sure he is never flat, we even tilted our daughters bed at the top.

Ask the doc about thickening the formula

I am a pediatric nurse. Sounds like you are doing all the right things. What I have noticed in my care is that not only do they need to eat upright, they also need to stay for a 1/2 hour afterward. This allows for the stomach to empty the formula into the intestine and this reduces the stomach contents. The problem is that although the zantac reduces the acid in the stomach, eating stimulates acid. So it is a kind of catch 22. Down where I work we use pepcid more which does the same thing but works in a different way. Talk to your doctor about dosing and see what he says about that. Not all reflux is the same. This may help. Also try feeding the baby more frequently and in smaller doses. This will also reduce the amount going in and should help. I hope I helped even a little. Good luck

This is up for constant debate. I can't say that my now 3 1/2 month old son has had that problem...he's just cranky at bedtime since he's so nosy. Anyway, I've heard people say to give them cereal. It is obviously a tad thicker (depending on how you mix it) than just formula. They say it helps them keep it down.

However, I'm not sure how you (or anyone else) feels about giving a baby that small cereal. My son started on cereal at 11 weeks. He was just hungry all the time. He was a different baby the first night we tried it. I mix it thin enough to flow through a regular Gerber NUK bottle.

My mom said my sister and I were both on cereal at 5 weeks, but I know most docs say no...I personally think it depends on the child. You just have to make sure they don't choke while eating.

If you do decide to give it a shot, I'd play it cheap...Wal-Mart's Parent's Choice brand has plain ole rice. They say rice is the way to go as far as food allergies and stuff.

Sorry to hear you're having such a hard time...I hope if my advice doesn't help, someone else will have something that does.

Good luck!

We have heard it all with our son. We tried many different types of formula, many different methods of feeding, and many things to try to stop the pain. Ultimately we came down to the last straw. Which is to say the last formula to try.

You see my son was diagnosed with reflux AND severe formula allergies. We would feed him a new formula and he would be OK for a day or a week or a month, and then he would just start vomiting clear across the room at every feeding.

In the end we only had one thing left to try. Which was a specialty formula that the hospital had and could only be ordered through the mail. It was called Neocate and was supposedly amino acid based which was supposed to set better with his tummy.

Well it worked. We had no problems after that. The formula came in packages of 6 or 8 I think through the mail and cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 a can, but thankfully WIC was there to save our skins.

Perhaps you can try that. I hope it goes well for him.

Oh and thickening it up seemed to work rather well too. Although it was only really effective once he was on the Neocate. We usually just used plain rice cereal as the oatmeal made his stools too hard. You might try other flavors but I don't think they set well with my son's tummy. So, we mostly stuck with plain rice cereal.