Trouble Adding Rice Cereal to formula...consistancy issues...please Help!

I have one word for you. PREVACID. My son had severe acid reflux from the time he was born. It was awful, he cried all the time, spit up all the time, we were both miserable. After visiting a GI and trying several medications, prevacid saved us. Within 2 days of starting the medication he was a different baby. Adding cereal isn't going to change the fact that she has acid reflux, which is painful and does damage the the esophagus. Try prevacid, my son was on it from about 3-1/2 months until around 11 months.
Val

If I am doing the math correctly then you are putting in three tablespoons. That is a lot! Out doctor had us do two tablespoons. I can't remember how many ounces she was drinking but I know we had a hard time with consistency so I can imagine you are. The fast nipples were too fast. We smashed the cereal on the side of a bowl with a spoon so it was in smaller pieces. That worked for us. Good luck!

just put enough rice to thicken a little and use a fast nipple....its like 2 tbs per bottle. Previcid didn't work?

Just try adding less cereal until you get it right. The whole idea is to just thicken the milk so that it stays down. Good luck we dealt with acid reflux for the first 8 months of our daughters life it was hard but it will get better.

Hi C.,
Just make the cereal in a bowl and feed it to her with a spoon and she can have her bottle on the side with the rest of her formula. My son started rice cereal at 4 months old because formula wasn't keeping him satisfied. As long as she is eating the rice cereal with her formula I don't think it matters if the cereal is in the bottle or not.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

My son had severe reflux problems and our pediatrician recommended Enfamil AR (the AR stands for added rice)It's basically a formula with added rice starches that thickens in the tummy AFTER the baby drinks it. A combo of this AND the Prevacid did wonders for him. Also try smaller feeding more often. 6oz at 4 months seems like alot. Good luck to you and your little one.

Hi C.,

My daughter had the exact same issue when she was a baby and what you should do is add all the formula first and shake if necessary (if you are combining powder and water) and then add the 1 1/2 teaspoon of cereal and shake it up very well. Once you do it will mix with the milk. If you add too much then it will become more of like a shake and be clumpy. What i've seen other mothers do is add the cereal in the bottle first and then add the milk afterwards and then shake. What type of bottle are you using? Are you using the bottles with the drop in bags or the plastic bottles? If you are using the drop in bags that could cause problems with mixing as well. Also if you are using the powdered milk such as carnation, they have those scoopers inside and I would use that scooper and measure the cereal that way. They aren't that large so you should be ok with the consistency there.

Have you tried ENFAMIL AR formula? That's what we had to use with both our boys who both suffered from reflux. It's specifically for babies with reflux. The rice cereal didn't work for us at all but once we switched to the AR, we saw a drastic improvement. It is available at many places, not too hard to find. You can almost always find it in liquid form in a large can, you may have more difficulty finding the powder (no idea why). Of coarse, you may want to ask your doctor before switching formulas but we had to take our sons (now 7 & 2) to a specialist and this was the very first thing he advised us to do. I hope this helps, I've been down that road twice and I know it's not easy. Wishing your little one comfort.

S. :^)

My son didn't go for this but when I did put it in I first mixed it up with a spoon and then I put the nipple on and shook up the bottle. That mixed it up better.

My docs had me start solids at 4 months. We first tried papaya (which only gave him more gas but he now eats wonderfully at 7 months). Avocado was wonderful! He loves it, it seems to settle well. I also did mango and watermelon. Funny, I know, but they are supposed to help with stomach acid. My boy LOVES them and they do seem to help. He is also on meds. It's been a really bumpy road and is only now smoothing out. Hang in there! Is his crib elevated? My son's has a reflux mattress plus I put a thick books under the head of the crib. My specialist says it has to be at a 30 degree angle to help.

In addition to mixing it together very well, you can lessen the 1 1/2 tsp by just a little and make the hole in the bottle a tiny bit bigger. This will help her keep her cereal down. Don't worry, just keep experimenting. If I can help in any way, feel free to email me ____@____.com

My baby had the same problem. You have to put the rice cereal in the blender in advance. Put the cereal in the blender and blend it on "pulverize" for a minute or so. That breaks it down so you can put it in the bottle with the formula or breast milk and it will go through and not get stuck. Do a whole box of cereal at once and store it in Tupperware so you have it on hand. Also, put the rice cereal in last after you've made the formula and warmed it up. That might help the rice dissolve better. You may also need to try the next size nipple (e.g. a medium flow instead of a slow flow) if the thickened liquid gets stuck in there. Good luck!

Homeopathy can help. find professional homeopath. i used one in LA area for my child, if you are far away go to this link:
http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/resources/practiti...
to find one
Good Luck
V.

just add a little oatmeal..forget rice b/c then you're going to have to deal with your daughter being constipated..our doc was not available and the other doc saw us..told us to use rice..then my son was constipated..talked to our regular doc and she said..to use oatmeal..u can just add a little..it really does help..i think better than the meds those meds were awful..i tasted it...be careful though..it is known to be a choking hazard to put rice or oatmeal in w/ formula or bm..so just use less than suggested..i only used about a tablespoons worth.

We did this with our son and if I remember correctly-it was a 1/2 or 1 tsp per oz-that was per our ped. I used a fork and made the hole a bit bigger and it worked no problem for us-try a bit less cereal and it should work. L.

Hello, Try putting a little cereal in. Also, when I make my grandaughter's formula in her bottle, I use a milkshake mixer. It is a handheld, battery operated one. A lot of us have these. I put the formula and water in the bottle and just mix it in there. It comes out with no clumps. This should work with the cereal as well. You can probably find these at WalMart, Target or other department stores in the kitchen gadget section. I have had mine for years.
Good luck with your precious baby.
K. K.

I think you maybe adding to much cereal. It
would be better if you just add 1 teaspoon
per oz.

My daughter had severe reflux also, and the most obvious thing I see is that her bottles are HUGE! A 6 ozer for a 4 month olf w/reflux is alot. I know it's hard, but taper her bottles back by an ounce, and give her a bottle more frequently. For example, my daughter at that age did a 4oz bottle every 3 hours, then as her "spilling" reflux improved, I increased it 5 oz every 3 to 4 hours. I tried the cereal in the bottle and it didn't do squat, just made her mad :) We ended up putting her on Zantac twice a day. It did wonders for her, and around 10 months old, we took her off of it. She is 16 months old and still has no more than 5 oz per bottle.

Good luck, it WILL get better w/time!

My pediatrician said one to two teaspoons of cereal per FOUR ounces, not one. Your doctor misspoke.

Don't put it in a bottle. Feed her the cereal with a spoon.Mix it as the doctor instructed. It will be really messy at first but you will both soon get the hang of it.

So sorry your are struggling with this. My twins had really bad reflux until they could sit up on their own.
We used the rice cereal - i think we did about 1 teaspoon per oz. I had the best luck with the Beachnut brand. We also used the Dr Brown's bottles with a #3 nipple so that it could flow out of the tip. You can also get one of the mortar and pestles to grind it up a little smaller. If you want it really thick you might try the Y-cut. We used one of those formula mixers and found that we needed to feed it immediately as it thickens when it stands.

We also found it helpful to keep them upright either in a swing or bouncy seat for at least 15-20 minutes after eating. Burping was really important but sometimes they would bring more up if we burped them immediately after eating so we started to wait and then tried gentle rubbing instead of patting to bring up the burps. We also used the walmart generic gas drops (similar to mylicon).

I'm surprised he didn't offer you a prescription and say 'here, try this'. (sarcasm) Drives me crazy that doctors do not try to figure out what's wrong as a 4-month old's digestive system is not ready to handle solids yet.

How about trying a formula that does not have dairy or soy in it. Your daughter could be experiencing allergies already which means that you need to be aware of the vaccines as they contain ingredients that have either caused the food allergy or could make the reaction to the shot worse. I have some of the shots broken down by ingredients with the food allergies that my daughter has and at our last well kid checkup, I shared it with her doctor after the doctor said she needed three of the shots that contained these ingredients. The doctor knows of my daughters food allergies but was not aware of the vaccine danger and asked to keep the list.

Please make sure YOU have done the research on vaccinations for YOUR child. The AAP recommended schedule of shots for children is too many, too soon. Here are sites and books that I always recommend for people to start their research:

www.909shot.com
www.tacanow.org

Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies: The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders, by Dr. Kenneth Bock

The Vaccine Book, by Dr. Robert Sears

What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Childhood Vaccinations, by Dr. Stephanie Cave

Evidence of Harm, by David Kirby

Maybe your doctor is a little outdated. They have recommended to added any type of food before 6 months of age due to severe food allergies.. I would get a second opinion. And have you tried feeded her on an incline and leaving her at an incline for a 20 minutes span afterwards.. hopefully this helps!

Try a diff kind like oatmeal.. or there are mixed ones that I always used with my daughter

That is honestly a LOT of cereal. It should only be 1 1/2 teaspoons per the 6 ozs. And get a nipple that has larger holes so it goes through easier or cut the whole a little bigger in the nipples you have. Also you can try Enfamil AR ----the AR stands for Added Rice so it's already premixed. I suggest the premixed cans as the powdered kind is hard to get all the clumps out. This info comes from the experience of a mom who had a baby just like yours. Reflux and constant spitting up was the name of the game with my daughter. Also, you can always call the ped back to verify the amount. The amount he told you is basically making thicker cereal than the box even suggest.

Also, I want to add that if you use a mixer/blender to mix up the formula please let it sit for a while. The blending process adds lots of air to the formula which just makes the baby spit up more because they need to burp out all that air. Nothing worse than making a spitting up baby's problem even worse.

1 1/2 tsps per oz is a lot of cereal especially if you're trying to feed it to her through her bottle. I would try making the formula first, then try adding the cereal slowly, 1 tsp at a time, until it reaches the thickness and consistency you'd like. None of my children have ever had acid reflux but my youngest son needed a little cereal in his bottle to help him feel full. Also, if your daughter is having trouble sucking the formula out of the bottle, you could try the "Vent-Aire" bottles with the cross-cut nipples. We had to switch to that bottle because the consistency was too thick for the regular bottle and nipple. Good luck!