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A Baby with Reflux

When we became parents for the first time (back in September) we had no idea what we were doing. Things seemed to be going okay, except for the breastfeeding and except for my husband having to "babysit" his mother during this 10 day paternity leave. Oh, and also Chris' phone crashed and he lost all of his photos that he had taken the last 4 years. And my computer crashed and I lost all of the photos I had taken over the last 2.5 years (that all happened when Max was about two weeks old.) But really, besides all that, we seemed to be figuring stuff out.

Then around week 3 and 4 Max started screaming. All the time. He stopped napping during the day. He would doze here and there, but for the most part he just cried all the time. I distinctly remember getting up one morning with Max. Chris made me breakfast and he got ready for work. Things were okay, but about 15 minutes before Chris left Max just started screaming again. And so I started crying because I knew Chris was leaving and I would just have this crying baby for the rest of the day. Thankfully Chris quickly decided to go into work a few hours late for me so he could help me. It was one of the most overwhelming things I've ever felt. Sometimes it was hard for me to even want to soothe him because nothing worked. I would get so frustrated. He also hated his bottles which was incredibly upsetting. I was pumping around the clock for him and yet, when I would give him these bottles, he would take two or three sucks and then start screaming. I just kept thinking why does my baby hate eating?! Literally the only way we could get him to eat was to bounce on the exercise ball while giving him the bottle. And not light bouncing, vigorous bouncing. As soon as we stopped, he would start screaming again. It took hours to feed him. Our backs ached because of all the holding and bouncing we had to do.

I hadn't been a mom before, but something just didn't seem right....

So I made an appointment with his pediatrician and she diagnosed him with silent reflux. Silent because he never actually spit up. But the stomach acid was coming up and was hurting him, which is why he basically never stopped screaming. She even said to us while were there "I can tell the last few weeks have been really rough on you because you're standing here calmly while he's screaming." I was appreciated her recognizing that. She put him on Zantac to start. We started it right away and saw some improvement. Not a lot of improvement, but some. I messaged her two days later and told her that it was a little bit better but not GREAT. So she changed his prescription to Prilosec. We put him on it immediately but what we were told was that it takes a FULL TWO weeks for Prilosec to start working. So it was back to screaming baby all the time. I just cannot even communicate how exhausting that is. We even took him to the ER one morning a few days later because he was wheezing. I thought it was just from the reflux, but since I wasn't sure, the nurse with whom I spoke with said that I should bring him in. Although the Children's ER doctors and nurses were really sweet, they basically told us it was all reflux related and there was nothing we could do until the medication started working.

I also started eating dairy free, soy free, egg free and peanut free. Which is also exhausting. I suspected he wasn't actually allergic, but the pediatrician said to try it and then slowly add things back in to see if it affected him. To be completely honest, I was horrible at the elimination diet. I would accidentally eat things I shouldn't all the time. Plus, I was STARVING all the time from pumping, but felt like I could hardly have anything. It was just a rough time.

After two weeks, the medicine started working it was like we had a BRAND NEW baby. He was happier, he slept better. Naps were still short, but at least I was able to put him down at times. I couldn't believe what a difference it made.

We were given a referral to see the pediatric GI doctor, although appointments are really tough to get so we didn't get an appointment until the end of December. By then, things had improved a lot, although I suspected he could be getting more of the medicine each day. The doctor agreed and tripled his dosage. (It's based on weight, so he obviously gained weight from when he first went on it at 5 weeks old to when we saw the GI doctor at 3 months old.)

This is used to be the only way I could get him to sleep a little bit during the day, on his stomach. Of course I was so paranoid that I wouldn't leave the room for even a second while he slept like that.

We pretty much have been smooth sailing since then. We have been back to the GI doctor twice to check up on it and he's doing great. They said that he will grow out of it as the muscle between the stomach and esophagus gets stronger and he starts eating more solids. We are actually in the process of weaning him off the medicine and I'm thrilled to say he's doing awesome.

When I read Facebook posts of other Mommas who are talking about their 3 and 4 and 5 week old babies who are screaming and won't eat, my heart breaks for them. (And I ALWAYS comment and tell them to check out the symptoms of reflux!) It's such a struggle, ESPECIALLY if it's your first baby. Actually maybe even more so if it's your second or third baby and you've never experienced reflux before. They say that silent reflux is perhaps one of the reasons behind diagnosing a baby with colic. I don't know if that's really true of not, but I'm willing to believe it's possible. I'm so thankful we had doctors who listened to us and didn't just tell us that it was colic and that we had to wait for him to grow out of it. I'm thankful that we were able to put Max on some medication to help him pain instead of making him cry through it.

The doctors told us that we are more likely to have another baby with silent reflux. This throws me into a slight panic knowing that we might have to go through this again, but at least next time we will know. We will know that there is good medicine out there and that they DO eventually grow out of it!


Hello! 

 

Hi! I'm Katie. I'm a Momma and a wife and I like to write down my thoughts here. I have a constant goal of thriving (rather than just surviving) as I navigate  my way through my marriage and motherhood. I'm not always successful, but I'd love your company as I learn to

Navigate & Thrive! 

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