thickening formula for reflux

NicDes

If you have experience with this, I'd love to hear if it helped your child or not.

Basically I was BF DS for 6 weeks and some reflux symtoms started. We also found out he wasn't getting enough milk from me and he had a diary allergy. I am nursing 4x a day and doing Alimentum 3-4x day. He has been on Zantac and since that didn't work we are now on Prevacid. He is still in pain, screaming, arching and tons of drool. I can hear him throw up in his mouth and swallow it. Now we are told to try the rice cereal in bottle. I am really worried about doing this. Of course I will do what ever would make him feel better... but please tell me if this helped your LO.

 thanks!

JLKinnear

DD has reflux and nothing else worked for her except the rice cereal. We use Enfamil A.R. Lipil which is just for spit-up problems, and put a little bit of rice cereal in it.

NicDes

Does thickening formula cause a faster weight gain?

MrsMoody23

Rice cereal in the bottle is the ONLY thing I agreed to. I didn't think that a little baby should be taking prescription medicines for something that can be helped by changing the diet. Our pedi is having us put one tablespoon of rice cereal per ounce of formula, plus one teaspoon of dark karo syrup to help with constipation from the rice... and only feeding 3oz at a time no less than 2 hours apart (which she is still only eating every 4 hours on the 3oz and gaining weight at a normal pace). This has helped her TREMENDOUSLY! She doesn't spit up as much anymore and doesn't scream in pain every night from all the acid burning her little stomach and throat because the rice helps soak it up. It sounds like a lot of rice but trust me, our case of reflux was very bad and she's a very happy baby with the new diet. However... you MUST either use cereal nipples or cut a slit into the top of your nipple in order for the mixture to come out because it's very thick, but not too thick for DD to choke on. It's consistency is like instant mashed potatoes before they've had time to set... if that makes sense.

MrsMoody23

NicDes:

Does thickening formula cause a faster weight gain?

This hasn't been an issue for us, see siggy! At almost 3 mos old she just bearly weighs over 10 lbs now.

NicDes

Yep that makes sense. Thank you! I agree I hate doing the meds but I thought meds would have helped more than the cereal and wanted to do that first. Hopefully the cereal will help and I can get him off the prevacid. Thanks for your help.

htomeo

We have DS with cereal in his formula. He still spits up, but way less. It seems to help him. We still have off days once in a while when it is really bad (like yesterday).

LSUBride26

This sounds nutty but I started taking my dd to the chiropractor yesterday. She was on Prilosec and Zantac and was still having a lot of pain and issues. I have heard a lot of success stories from infants with acid reflux who visited the chiropractor. I took her off the medicine and she now has been twice to the chiropractor. I saw a difference in her today and my chiropractor told us that we should see a huge difference by this weekend. I will keep you posted on her progress if you would like...