Monday, June 09, 2008
When you think about it, everyone has a strong opinion about food and eating. One adult may crave crunchy, salty chips while another needs to have a piece of chocolate each day. So why are we surprised when a baby expresses strong opinions about the different flavors and textures of baby formula and ...
10 Foods to Avoid with Acid Reflux 
Six Natural Remedies for Heartburn 
Seven Symptoms of Acid Reflux 
Heartburn Trigger Foods 
I cannot thank you enough for this simple yet effective article. I guess I cried for a good couple of minutes reading it. Although I have been trying to be my most caring self when feeding my 6 mo old daughter, you made me realise I could do better!!! thanks again.
Hello Nithya,
It is always sad for me when I hear about a baby who does not enjoy eating. It is sad for the baby and her parents. I am sure you are both working really, really hard to manage the eating. You both might be worried about different things too. She might be worried that the food will hurt or won't taste good. You might be concerned about calories and nutrition. If your baby does not like to eat, it may be a sign that she is struggling due to pain or discomfort.
Does your daughter find baby food unpleasant? Some babies are ready to eat before 6 months of age and can't get enough. Other babies are closer to a year before they get the hang of eating and really enjoy it. If your baby needs calories to grow, the extra food might be really important. If she is growing just fine, maybe you can decrease the amount of the feeding.
Let me know a bit more about your situation.
Thinking about you-
Jan Gambino
The Reflux Mom
www.refluxmom.com
Hi Jan,
It is so comforting to know there are such helpful people like you, guiding and helping parents like us who are going through probably the most challenging phase of our lives.
I am going to be as elaborate as possible - so please bear with the size of the comment.
We are on an awful roller coaster ride since my daughter Nyah has been 6 weeks old who was a full term baby but @ 5.5 lbs. At 6 weeks we noticed that she was crying/kicking legs/ arching back during just 1 or 2 feedings per day. Our ped. immediately diagonized it as acid reflux and asked us to try Mylanta whenever she was uncomfortable and thicken her formula with oatmeal cereal. Since that didnt help and she started crying for each and every feeding we moved to Zantac very soon. Zantac kicked in after 4 days and we saw a totally happy and comfotable baby. But that lasted just 5 days. So we moved up to prevacid 7.5 mg solutabs 2x daily. She was on prevacid for almost 2.5 months... While taking Prevacid she always had good patches and bad... We saw her feeding improve and she was getting over the fear and started feeding well for 4-5 days and then we will go downhill again with total refusal of food.
Since she is lactose intolerant and is on Similac sensitive, prevacid used to make her really gassy and fussy & totally constipated too. That added to our woes.. Since Prevacid did not give us satisfactory relief from reflux pain , our ped. suggested we try Zegerid .
For the past 1.5 months we are on Zegerid. We slowly but gradually started seeing an improvement in her willingness to feed. Nyah ever since started feeling the reflux pain has cut down her feeding amount considerably. My husband and I almost have a victory dance everytime she takes 3.5 oz of formula at a time. So after switching to zegerid, we had the longest good phase for 20 days !!! (Nyah was a silent refluxer when she was very small, ever since she started getting active, and started bending / putting pressure on her tummy, she is spitting up - still the spit up is only little most of the time). During these 20 days we saw very little spit up and we were almost thinking maybe the LES was getting stronger..
But then while on zegerid she also had cold, and it persisted for more than 2 wks and became a sinus infection, and she was put on antibiotic(amox) . I am not sure if it is a conincidence or something the antibiotic did to her digestive system (the ped. says it cannot be the antibiotic) we are now in the worst phase.. We hardly even have ok days, and it has almost been a month she has had food willingly. The ped. who was actively working with the medications with us so far, now thinks it has gotten behavioral for Nyah now. So we are seeing a Ped GI for the first time on 27th July.
I do not agree that it is totally behavioral for Nyah - if so, on a bad day why would a 6 month old baby prefer to feel awful and hungry all day long and deny to even have 2 oz of formula ?? In the last 30 days, there have been atleast 12 bad days, when she is so fussy and irritated due to hunger but yells at the sight of the bottle.
Little note on her solids : We have been giving her homemade cereal and some simple stage 1 vegetables since 4 months of age. Initially even on bad days - when she refused to take formula she was readily having the solids, but lately on bad days it is a denial of both formula and solids.. On good days she cannot take more than 4 oz of solids and it cannot be any complicated stage 2 food. Just plain green beans / carrorts / squash.
We are sooo confused about why she has these good and rough patches ? Can you please help me ask the right qns to the Ped GI next week. And what should I expect out of him?
Thanks in advance with all the support Jan. Even though a bit late I am happy I found this site....
And apologies for the long post.
Thanks,
Nithya
Hello Nithya, Sending hugs to you and your family. What a long journey you have been on! It sounds like your entire family has been working hard to get your daughter nourished. I am so glad you have an appointment with the GI doctor next week.
It sounds like you have been keeping records of her feeding and treatment. Be sure to have an organized list of symptoms and concerns for the GI appt. I always tell parents to make a list of all of the symptoms/concerns and then let the doctor know your top 1-3 concerns. For you, it might be feeding. Other parents may say sleep or weight gain. By specifying the top concerns, you will help the doctor to target the treatment to your concerns.
It is certainly possible that your daughter has a behavioral component to her feeding issues. If you had a toothache and it hurt every time you ate, you might behave differently too-avoid food, only take a drink, select certain foods and not others. Babies are very smart and often try to help us "fix" the reflux too.
I would ask the doctor about two issues:
Milk soy protein intolerance (MSPI). Does she have milk soy protein intolerance? Should she be on a hypoallergenic formula?
Probiotics: Does she need probiotics? It is well known that antibiotics will destroy the "good" gut bacteria as it works to eliminate the infection. For a baby with a sensitive stomach, it could affect digestion quite a bit. My kids seem to feel better if they take probiotics with antibiotics. It may help to take them for a few weeks after an illness too. My kids always ate poorly after an illness-sometimes for weeks after.
Your message was very helpful-a lot has happened in the last few months. I hope that the next few months get easier.
Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns before your appt. I will be waiting to hear about your appt.
Take care,
Jan Gambino
The Reflux Mom
www.refluxmom.com