I'm writing this post for other moms out there searching for answers about what to do for their infant who can't keep anything down. The things that we did and tried were recommended by our pediatric group, but you should consult your child's pediatrician before trying them on your baby. Every baby is different. I just want you to know you can talk to me and you are not alone! I will come do a load of laundry for you, I will come hold your baby without fear of being spit upon!
The first week of our baby's life was pretty normal. We did notice that he wanted to nurse all the time and he started doing a funny arching of his back after eating. He did not spit up at this point, at least not where we could see it.
After my milk came in, we noticed an increase in his irritability and his "planking" as I called it. He was extremely fussy and some of my family members were calling it colic. The last thing a new mom needs is a fussy baby with no way of consoling him. Then, the spit up started. I know that every baby spits up a little. I'm not an idiot. The doctors and friends/family would all say, "Yes, that's normal for your baby to spit up a little." I would say, "yes, but is it normal for the splat to sound like a gallon of paint hitting the ground and for it to soak everything within a two foot radius around him?" How in the world was I supposed to know when my child was actually ill if throwing up everything he ate was a normal part of his life?
We decided to test for pyloric stenosis. This was a condition that caused similar symptoms as acid reflux, including "projectile vomit" but it could be easily fixed with surgery (well, as easy as surgery on an infant can ever be). He did not have pyloric stenosis. During the testing, they did officially confirm that he did have reflux. Poor little buddy. I didn't want him to have a burning esophagus all the time. No wonder he was fussy! The testing, in case you're unfamiliar with it requires a swallow study to be done under x-ray. The hardest part was keeping him NPO (nothing by mouth) prior to surgery since all he ever wanted to do was nurse. It was also difficult getting him to swallow the barium.
The doctor prescribed zantac, a heartburn med. It tasted awful! Half the medicine never made it down him and it didn't seem to be working at all. I've had several friends say that this worked for their children who had mild reflux. But, we needed the big guns!
We eventually got prevacid solutabs. They do not make a generic of the solutab for babies so it's very expensive, even with insurance. It's so worth it though! Such a difference in baby's mood/behavior! The doctor will say to dissolve the tab in a little bit of water and then to suck it up in a medicine dropper and give it to them that way. Huge mess. There were about a million little pink dots that would never dissolve in the water and always end up getting stuck in the dropper. What worked best for us is to hold the tab under his tongue for a few seconds until it dissolves on its own. You have to be very careful about this when they are teeny tiny. We have experimented with all different dosages and now have been able to ween down to half a tab every night. I used to think pill cutters were for old people, but we have used it more than we ever thought we would need!
The early days:
All of my friends called me the "bag lady" when we first had our baby. I always carried in my diaper bag: 2 changes of clothes for baby, at least 3 thick burp cloths, and 2 extra bibs, and a wet sack, on top of all the things parents of non-reflux babies would carry. I often carried changes of clothes for me and my husband in the car as well.
Here are the most handy items to have if your kid has a projectile problem:
- Burp cloths- if your kid has reflux, you might as well "throw in the towel" on cutesy burp cloths that are thin and can't absorb more than a rain drop. Get yourself a good stock of the really thick burp cloths. This is what we got:
Target, Wal-Mart, and Babies R Us will all have what they call "6 ply" or even "12 ply" but there are actually 3 numbers of ply as you go across. Look for the 4x6x4 ply. You are going to want some coverage over the entire burp cloth because your child will never projectile vomit directly on the middle of the cloth.
Buddy's burp cloth became his security blanket. He had one with him wherever he went!
Buddy's burp cloth became his security blanket. He had one with him wherever he went!
-Wet bag- "But Cara, can't I just use gallon zip locks?" Of course you can. But, after using this thing day in, and day out for 21 months now, I can honestly say it more than paid for itself. It also traps in bad smells like nothing I've ever seen. We have used it for all kinds of "soiled" items. For the reflux mom, it is awesome for holding in the bad smell of spit up in clothes and burp cloths.
-Bibs- my favorite bibs are the "Just One You" brand by Carter's sold at Wal-Mart and Target. These are the only bibs that I found that have a true protective lining for moisture. Other bibs might catch food, but they don't catch spit up very well. I was anti-bib at first because I felt like it made a baby look like a dog who had just had surgery, but I got over that quickly as I realized how difficult it can be to change entire wardrobes multiple times/day.
Even his Halloween costume needed a bib!
Even his Halloween costume needed a bib!
With all of these cloth diapering items, you might wonder if I did cloth diapering and I did not. You will see later why I just couldn't do any more laundry than I was already doing.
In the early days, I was doing 4-6 loads of laundry per day. Every day I did a load of just burp cloths. At first I was spraying all of the spit up spots with Shout spray. Then I ended up doing a load of just burp cloths using bleach in the load. I might be a horrible mom for using bleach on children's products, but spit up is very hard to remove and bleach was the only thing that seemed to get it all the way out. The other 3-5 loads/day were of our clothes that had spit up on them throughout the day, blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals that had spit up on them from the day. A projectile spitter baby is no respecter of items. If you are walking by something carrying the baby, he will most likely spit up on it. I think the phrase, "This is why we can't have nice things" was probably coined by the mom of a reflux child. We finally had our carpet professionally cleaned a couple of months ago!
You will also get really good at the complicated task of removing the liner to your car seat and high chair for cleaning! (Yay, another load of laundry!)
Things that people say will work for every baby might not work on a reflux baby. Things that didn't work for us:
-swings
-anything that held him in an upright position
-any baby-wearing device
-rough housing (my husband still insisted on playing with our son just like any normal baby and was thoroughly spit upon multiple times throughout his first year, kind of sweet actually!)
-rough housing (my husband still insisted on playing with our son just like any normal baby and was thoroughly spit upon multiple times throughout his first year, kind of sweet actually!)
Of course we tried these things periodically with varied results. Whenever we did, he would inevitably spit up. Several websites I found when I was dealing with all of this said to hold the baby at a 45 degree angle for 30 minutes after they eat. But it seemed like that just made everything come up for our baby.
Nursing:
If you aren't nursing, there are several formulas you can try specifically for acid reflux.
If you are nursing, keep nursing. Hang in there! Breastmilk is digested more quickly than formula through the baby's stomach and therefore does not sit there as long with the possibility of coming back up. You will hear lots of things about restricting your diet in order to keep your baby from spitting up. I went on all kinds of restrictions with limited results. If there is something that you notice a definite correlation of eating it with increased spit-up, then don't eat that anymore. But, as far as telling yourself you can't ever have dairy again, it might be a bit extreme. One kind soul told me, "Maybe he's just rejecting your milk." I cried so hard. I felt like it was a rejection of me as a mom. Your baby is not rejecting you or your milk. They just have reflux and formula might make matters worse instead of better. We did try supplementing with an acid reflux formula the first couple of weeks and I cried so hard as he downed the bottle. Then, a few minutes later, the whole thing came back up. I was strangely happy, like, "Boo-yah, it's not my breastmilk's fault!" I know that's weird, but being covered in spit up all the time can drive you a little crazy!
What my doctor told me is that if being on a restricted diet prevents you from nursing, then don't be on a restricted diet.
You might make a ton of milk. I felt like I was nursing a fleet of babies, not just one. He wanted to nurse all the time, and it wore me out at first. But, he really was hungry. He would eat, spit up, feel empty, and want to fill up again! Bless his little esophagus. A reflux baby might not be a schedule baby. That's ok. It can be inconvenient as a mom, but it's inconvenient for little buddy to throw up everything he eats. When baby's sleeping, you might have to wake up to pump off some of your milk. That's also ok. It will help you with what I'm about to tell you.
Another suggestion we tried was adding rice cereal to breastmilk to help thicken it. We tried several variations of this. Any new mom that tells me they are going to pump instead of breastfeed, I like to remind them that it will take twice as long. First, you sit with the pump for 20 minutes or so. Then, you clean all of your pump parts and bottle. Then, you mix rice cereal in 1 tsp/oz. of breastmilk or formula. Then, you feed the baby for the next 15-20 min. If you pump ahead of time as mentioned earlier, you can use pre-pumped milk to give to the baby with cereal while you are pumping for the next time. We did notice a decrease in the amount of spit up with rice cereal added to the breastmilk. Unless you are a momma octopus, pumping and feeding simultaneously is rather difficult. I got to where I could hold the pump with one arm and the bottle with the other while baby was propped up on pillows in my lap. We only did rice cereal for a short time and realized that the reward of spitting up less, but still spitting up quite a bit, was not worth giving up actual nursing and all of the time spent on pumping and bottle feeding. Once again, my doctor stressed that if frustration with pumping=giving up on nursing all together, it was more important to just straight up nurse!
I will say this about rice cereal: gerber brand is flaky and will not dissolve well in breastmilk. It gets stuck in the nipple of the bottle. We used Earth's Best whole grain made with brown rice (very finely ground and dissolves well/fits through the nipple). I read so much about rice cereal and there were articles coming out about arsenic used in rice cereal that completely freaked me out. Always be careful to look at ingredient labels on anything you give your baby. Talk to your doctor if you have concerns and closely monitor baby's reactions and/or weight gain.
Our son was slightly delayed in sitting up on his own since elevating him at all resulted in projectile spit up. Introduction of solid foods was a bit tricky for us. We had to introduce things much more slowly and very carefully determine which things were more of a trigger for him than others. Yogurt was a bad trigger for him, and even though he loved the taste of it, we had to keep him off of it for several more months until his reflux improved. Mobility is also an added challenge to the mom of a reflux kid because you will now have bright orange sweet potato stains in your carpet all over the place instead of right next to where your kid was lying down. Pre-mobility, we used lots of floor blankets (2nd load of laundry per day). Post-mobility, you might be finding special surprises a few weeks-months after the reflux improves! Remember your motto- "This is why we can't have nice things..."
Our son was slightly delayed in sitting up on his own since elevating him at all resulted in projectile spit up. Introduction of solid foods was a bit tricky for us. We had to introduce things much more slowly and very carefully determine which things were more of a trigger for him than others. Yogurt was a bad trigger for him, and even though he loved the taste of it, we had to keep him off of it for several more months until his reflux improved. Mobility is also an added challenge to the mom of a reflux kid because you will now have bright orange sweet potato stains in your carpet all over the place instead of right next to where your kid was lying down. Pre-mobility, we used lots of floor blankets (2nd load of laundry per day). Post-mobility, you might be finding special surprises a few weeks-months after the reflux improves! Remember your motto- "This is why we can't have nice things..."
Our doctor told us at the very beginning, it will probably start getting better around 10 months and it won't go away completely until around a year old. For us, it was around 13 months that things truly started improving with a full 24 hr. period with no spit up. I hate to say it, but it seems like time was the only thing that helped with our son's reflux. Prevacid made him not hurt anymore, but time was the ultimate cure!
I hope one day that my son knows just how much I love him. I hope he knows all of the behind the scenes things I tried for his reflux. I hope he knows that he was 100% worth it and if I had the choice, I would not trade him for 100 non-reflux babies!
I hope all of the reflux moms out there take comfort in knowing that other moms are going through this too.
I hope all of you non-reflux people out there will think twice before ever saying to a reflux mom, "So, your kid spits up a little? What's the big deal?"
I hope one day that my son knows just how much I love him. I hope he knows all of the behind the scenes things I tried for his reflux. I hope he knows that he was 100% worth it and if I had the choice, I would not trade him for 100 non-reflux babies!I hope all of the reflux moms out there take comfort in knowing that other moms are going through this too.
I hope all of you non-reflux people out there will think twice before ever saying to a reflux mom, "So, your kid spits up a little? What's the big deal?"
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