Sleepoing in his carseat or swing are good iedas. That is what we did with our son in those early months when he had reflux too. I put his carseat in his crib and put him in his carseat to halp for when he got older...I didn't want him to no be used to sleeping in his own room. Hope that helps.
Hi Lisa,
I had the same problem with my now 5 month old. The good news is that it went away when she began to roll over (at 14 weeks). I tried the car seat a few times until I read that it was a bad idea because of the soft sides (for suffocation). We let her sleep in a swing sometimes, but then we had to sleep with one eye open. Another idea is to elevate his bassinet with something under the feet of it. That way his head will be a little bit elevated. They also sell a crib wedge at baby stores, I found one at special additions on Lamar. It is a good idea if you swaddle your baby. Otherwise, I have found that the baby will just wiggle around and roll off of the wedge. Good luck. I hope you get to sleep soon!
It is really painful to have reflux and it usually does not feel better without meds. The stomach acid is hydrochloric acid and that is a painful acid to have in your esophagus. I had to give my son meds until he was 14 months old. He had Losec and Zantac (not at the same time), and later sometimes he had Gaviscon. He slept on a wedge as well. We never laid him down flat. The reflux is also blamed for ear infections too. YOu can ask about giving Gaviscon for babies too that will give releif when it is very bad. Our son arched his back seriously from the pain. He even had a seizure and aparently this can be one of the less know symptoms of reflux too.
Good luck.
My son had reflux when he was younger. He slept in his swing for a few months. It allowed him to be comfortable and get some sleep. When the reflux cleared up, he went to his crib without any problems.
My daughter had this too, still does. We were told to put her in her car seat for 20-30 min after feeding without picking her up at all. Her specialist also took her off of her prescription and told me to give her Mylanta between meals. At that age, 1/4 tsp approx. We used Mylanta Supreme Cherry. We also used a sleep positioner at night leaving her on her side, as you don't want her choking on vomit if she spits up at night. We were also given a wedge from the hospital that kept her at an upright angle in her bed at night. You can also use telephone books or something under one end of the mattress to help elevate it. It should come up 4-6 inches for kids with reflux. You can buy wedges about 2 inches high. You might could double it? The one I have from the hospital is much thicker than the ones you can buy. You could let him sleep in his car seat if it fits him well. You just don't want him in a position that his head could fall down and cut off his breathing. If, he has good head control and the car seat is angled nicely, then he should be ok. But, I found the sleep positioner and wedge at night made me feel more secure. I used the car seat/swing (not moving) during the day. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Lisa,
I have 4 kids and 3 of them had reflux. With the 1st, we just put her in the bouncy seat after feedings. She slept through the night at 8 weeks so sleeping in the bouncy seat wasn't an issue. With the 2nd, they put her on medicine. With the 3rd, I had a different pediatrician with a different approach, he suggested cutting out milk from MY diet, and it made a huge difference. So, if you're breastfeeding this may help.
Good luck!
Sherry
ask your dr. for medicine.
Both my kids had reflux and got better once they had medicine.
It will make your son feel better,too.
Lisa,
My twin girls have reflux. They are now 7 months old and doing good but we did have to seek medical attention. Reflux is nothing to play around with. For adults it's like a bad case of acid indigestion but for a baby, it's much worse. The muscle in the top of their stomach is immature and allows the stomach acids to reflux back up into their esophagas and sinus cavity. My neice had this problem and has had horrible ear infections as a result and at 18 had to have tubes.
I know you'd prefer not to have your son on medication but acid reflux is nothing to play around with. It has lasting effects on us as adults. My daughters take Prevacid-a small desolveable tablet. When they started it, it was an immediate change back to happy babies. It is very safe and they can usually be weaned from it around 7 months after they have gone thru foods and adjusted well.
Anyway, that is just my opinion for whatever it may be worth to you.
Anngela
The medications are VITAL--they prevent damage to his esophagus and failure to thrive (low weight). My grandson had the same trouble, and even today (he's five years old) he is much smaller than all of his classmates. (By the way, his reflux lasted about 7 or 8 months!)
Try raising the head of his bed so that he sleeps at an angle. This helps somewhat. (Put bricks under the legs on the bed or under the mattress.)
Unfortunately, holding him upright is the only way to prevent the milk from coming right back up. When his little body matures, this problem will go away, but until then, you need to help him all you can. Many babies actually stop breathing when they are in so much pain. I personally witnessed this with my grandson when I kept him overnight at about 3 months of age. He turned beet red and didn't take a breath until I blew in his face. Scarey!!!
LIsa,
You have gotten a lot of great responses that cover everything that I would say, except for one small thing. Baby reflux is just like adult reflux. I never had it when I was pregnant (I only made it to 30 weeks), but my husband has it and he always taks about how much the acid coming back up burns. When our son first started showing signs of reflux we took him to his pedi and the meds made a ton of difference. I would at least suggest talking to your doc and getting the med for the acid neutralizer. My son has been on Zantac and it has made a ton of difference. Protect your little ones esophagus. I wish you the best and if you have any more questions please don't hesitate to ask.
Suzanne
You had a ton of responses and I read through a bunch but not all so if this is a repeat sorry. And this really isnt the answer to what you asked but it will help and it is not medicine.
BabyBliss Gripe Water
Both of my children had reflux as babies and medicine did not help. Then I found the Gripe Water (it is all natural also) I put it in one bottle a day and it was like magic for my little ones. Of course they spit up sometimes, but it was not reflux. A nurse recommended it to me and I tell everyone about it and everyone I tell has had the same reaction I did - it is wonderful.
My 6 week old son has silent reflux...no spit up but he gags and squirms after eating if we are not diligent about burping him. He also is a light/restless sleeper if you are not holding him. Since my husband and I both work at home and take care of him during the day, holding him all day long is not a feasible option. If we put in a flat position to sleep, he immediately wakes up and squirms. My older son also had this same issue and I remembered being miserable for the first 4 months.
This time around, I am determined to not experience the miserableness again. Two weeks ago, I researched some online articles about sleep patterns and reflux. I stumbled upon a solution: http://www.ambybaby.com. Their motion hammocks are recommended by pediatricians and are supposed to help soothe babies with reflux and colic. Also, the hammock helps restless and short nappers (my son). You can adjust the angle that the baby sleeps and gently push vertically or horizontally on the hammock to provide motion should the baby become restless while they sleep. Simply put, it combines the benefits of the car seat and the swing all in one without the fear of flat head, SIDs or the device toppling over. Babies can be in the hammock up to 25 lbs or 1 year old if you purchase the heavy duty spring.
I bought a hammock a week ago and I have seen an improvement in his nap quality and duration. He used to sleep 35 minutes a time during the day and now he is sleeping around 1.5 to 2 hours at a time. We are still learning how to use it efficiently. In my opinion, the biggest advantage to use the hammock over the other methods is that you can soothe your baby without picking him/her up continuously. Before, we would lie our son down in his crib and he would get restless/uncomfortable within 5 minutes and start crying. We would pick him up, calm him down and then place him back in the crib. We would repeat this cycle for the next hour with our son only getting about 35 minutes of unrelaxing sleep. Now, we he starts fussing or becoming restless, we gently push the hammock and goes back to sleep. He wakes up cooing and smiling now.
Good luck!
I know you mentioned that you don't want to medicate but we did with great success. He started refusing to eat because he was in so much discomfort. The medication was inexpensive and he took it without any problems. And thankfully, he was much happier. We started to wean him from the meds at 6 months. He's now 9 months and we don't have any reflux problems. Our doctor said it is common for babies to have reflux because their esophagus doesn't fully develop until around 6 months. Good luck.
Hi Lisa,
When you say he has acid reflux and spits up, what do you mean by spits up. A little yuk from his mouth or projectile vomiting. One of my sons had projectile vomiting and after 13 formula changes an old doctor with many years experience broke a fistula in his rectum and we never had another problem.
If it is truly acid reflux, I have a sample of Xango juice that I will be happy to send you to let him try as long as he is already on fruit juice. You would give him a very small amount because he is so tiny but it should naturally stop the reflux. It has worked for thousands of people. If you want more information, send me an email to [email protected]. Hope either of these will help you. Know it stopped my acid reflux quickly. If neither of these work, take him to the doctor because acid reflux is nothing to mess with. The esophagus is not like the stomach and the acid will damage it if it goes on too long. But try the sample of the juice first. It is natural and really does work. Jean
Keep pattin that back while he is upright. He may have more air in there than one little burp. You may try sleeping with him in a recliner every once and awhile so both of you can get a good nights sleep. My baby had asthma and required to sleep at an incline. Many children sleep in their car seats!! :)
First of I have to admit I did not read all the post so if this is repeat info...Sorry. My son had refulx from about 2 weeks until about 5 months (he is 6 mo. now and we have the occasional spit up). We switched his formula to Enfamil AR and had great success. We did also put him on Prevacid (sp?) which is a mild med for reflux. He out grew his dosage at about 4 1/2 months and we chose to stop the med at that point. He is still on the Enfamil AR and does great. It is something that all babies grow out of at some point. My sis-in-law has triplets and they all have it. She puts rice cereal in thier formula. My pedi said no to that, but everyone is different. Hope you find relief for you son and yourself. Another suggestion...we laid our son on his tummy on one of the infant sleep positioners. It held him in place and also kept him reclined and off his back which helped greatly when he was very young.
i'm so not trying to sound preachy or make you feel bad, but please put him on medicine if he needs it! i am anti meds unless necessary and resisted putting my daughter on reflux meds also. think about it this way, your son has CONSTANT heartburn that will NEVER go away on its own and is causing continual pain/discomfort along with vomiting - he's miserable. that's what reflux is. i would be willing to bet that if you ever have heartburn you don't think twice about taking a tums or taking pepto if you were vomitting a lot. so why not give him meds and relieve his pain, if you would take something to relieve yours? i resisted for about 6 weeks before giving my daughter meds. she was a different baby once i did because she was no longer in pain. she started sleeping without being held among other things. the thing most people won't tell you is that reflux does not always go away on its own, and they do not always outgrow it by the time they start eating solid foods. my daughter is 13 months and still is taking reflux med 2x a day because she didn't outgrow it. if i miss one dose i can hear her swallowing down the reflux (she isn't a spitter - has silent reflux and swallows it all).
as for car seat sleeping - there is research in canada that is now associating car seat sleeping with sids. they think it is caused by the upright positions of the carseat causing odd angles in the body making it difficult to breath (like head slumping forward onto chest) and/or causing the baby to breathe in too much carbon dioxide and quit breathing.
the practical reason is that the baby should be strapped in or they can wiggle out/fall out etc (mine could wiggle out of almost anything by 2 months) and most reflux babies hate being in car seats b/c the straps press on their tummies causing the reflux to be worse. not to mention you will have to retrain/break him of sleeping in those to get him in his bed later.
if sleeping is a problem and he is diagnosed with relfux, you should look into wedges. some insurance co will pay for them with a specific diagnosis code. here are 2 links below for them.
http://www.tuckersling.com/?gclid=CJv1xPLRrZcCFRhhnAod52CHiw
http://www.pollywogbaby.com/refluxandcolic/refluxwedgesforinfantswithacidreflux.html
please feel free to ask me any other questions. i went through a lot of information about reflux and talked to a lot of people with kids with reflux.
Sorry I didn't read the thread, but if it hasn't been said, use a swing, he will sleep better and not get sick of his car seat which will be a curse later. Also Goggle wedge pillow, you will find a ton of options for $30 or less. Safety pin a baby blanket folded in half and stick him in it with his legs sticking out each side. He can sleep on his stomach or back on this and it will keep him proped up enough that he should do well. We did this for my son who spit up gallons everyday for months and we started getting some sleep. We also put him on meds eventually and while I hated doing it, and he still spit up, it seemed to eleviate his discomfort and he didn't cry much after that. In hindsight I wished I had know earlier how much it would help. He did still spit up a lot, but it really helped! Good luck, this too will pass.
Hi Lisa,
Do you have a baby swing cause my Pedi. suggested for us to put her in her baby swing and leave her mostly if she goes back to sleep.
You've gotten some really great responses. My 11-year old went through the same thing when she was two months old. Several things: the formula, medication, and constantly sitting them up. We used the Alimentum. I know there's more choices now but that worked really well for us. Also, reflux does cause the pain of acid coming back up in their throat. It's so hard seeing them on medicine but you don't want them hurting either. There may be some alternative you can use at a nearby health food store. If anyone tells you to use peppermint, don't. I recently learned from a pedi that peppermint actually makes reflux worse but it's fine for a simple upset stomach. Never knew that. I don't know where you live but I live in Montgomery and have a great store on 105. Anything natural that is safe for an infant is definitely worth a try. I remember those long days and nights and it does get better so hang in there.