Adding rice cereal to help with reflux

CamilleJon

My MIL, who is an RN, thinks we should start putting a teaspoon of rice cereal in LO's 4 oz. bottle at night. She says this will help with his reflux and that he will be better able to keep it down. Has anyone done this? I have not yet talked to the pedi about it (and I won't DO it until I talk to her) but I just wanted to see if this is a commonly used method with reflux.

Also, how do you add the cereal? Did you have to make an extra hole in the nipple or buy special nipples?

erinl5276

our pedi recommended this to us, but I am still iffy about it.  He told us at 2 weeks to do it, but I still haven't tried it.  I know most things you read say not to introduce rice cereal until 4-6 months so I just feel like this is a little bit too early!! I know the pedi wouldn't recommend anything that he doesn't truly feel is best, it's just hard for me!! and I don't know about the nipples. . . he told us that adding that little wouldn't thicken it too much and it should still work with our slow flow nipples, but I haven't tried it.  GL to you if you decide to give it a shot

Rochell

my SIL did this bc my nephew woould wake up every 2hrs to feed even after a nice heavy "meal"...it didnt harm him but i would talk to ur pedi about it

Mama_SAS

Yes, this is a common remedy for reflux. 

acesup

we do this for DD's reflux. our pedi had told us 1 tbsp for her 5 oz bottle. 1 teaspoon wont really do much. the idea is to thicken the formula which will help keep it from coming back up. our GI pedi told us that for it to actually do its intended purpose you would need to put 1 tbsp per ounce, but that adds a lot of calories. we do it anyway because i feel it does help a little bit (only we do 2 tbsp for a 6 oz bottle now.) the other option is to try enfamil AR (assuming you are FF and not BF) - it has the rice starch in it without adding the extra calories. we tried it and it really agreed with DD but made her very very constipated so we went to Gentlease with rice cereal. you just mix it into the bottle. we use size 3 nipples (avent bottles). they had thick formula ones but they flowed too fast.

HTH. GL! 

Copernicus08

Our pedi suggested this for DS at 2 months but we stopped after two or three days. DS spit it up. I don't think his digestive system was able to handle it yet. We won't try rice cereal again until he's able to eat it from a spoon. 

 

vwilliams6

Our pedi just switched her formula to the A.R. enfamil. Which already has rice starch added to it to make it thicker for them. Alot easier then adding ceral to every bottle. Also it doesn't come out of the slow flow nipples very good at all, we had to switch to medium flow.

texaspch7

I add 2 teaspoons of rice cereal to my 2 month old's 5oz bottles.  It really helps with his reflux.  He's never constipated, stool is normal, and he eats every 4-5 hours during the day and 5-7 hrs at night!  I use Similac Adavance. It works better for him, he's happy, i'm an advocate.

g8orell

We did this with DD when she was a few weeks old for her reflux. I opted to go this route rather than meds because reflux is a physiological problem where the sphincter is weak, so the food/acid goes back up into the esophagus. Meds don't treat it, just take away the acid (which causes pain). The whole point of cereal is to thicken the formula so it stays down. It worked really well for DD! We did 1tsp of cereal per oz of formula. So when she was taking 4oz, we added 4 tsps into the bottle and mixed. She was on this until about 9 months. We originally started with rice, but she got too constipated, so we switched to oatmeal. I used the Happy Bellies brand (Target and BRU have it) because it is organic and has the added DHA and ARA. Not sure if it is coincidence or not, but she started STTN at that point too. I don't think adding 1tsp per bottle will really do anything. But yes, at 1tsp per oz, I had to enlarge the nipple. We use Playtex Drop Ins and they even make a Y-cut nipple for cereal, but it didn't work. I took any size nipple and used a knife to make an X symbol. Go from the inside of the nipple and push the knife out. Buy a bunch of nipples because it will take a few practice ones to get it right. I enlarged it enough to have a consistent drip, drip, drip flow. As she got older, I made the holes a little bigger.