Sister's Baby 6 Week Old Cries When Eating and Won't Eat Much

My now 18 month old daughter use to do the exact same thing. She was also diagnosed with silent acid reflux. Do not stop giving the medicine. It is helping some. I ended up calling the doctor and first he started having me give her a larger dose and when that did not help he changed her to a different brand of acid reflux medicine, Previcad, it is stronger. It did the trick for her. Hope this helps.

PLEASE look at the website www.marci-kids.com This is written and maintained by dr's who specialize in GERD. The baby needs the RIGHT medicine for him- all babies are different. We tried different things for about 12 weeks before we found marci-kids. And the med recommendations really worked for us.

My son also had reflux (not the spitting up kind, but the kind that made it hurt for him to nurse). He was on prevacid and we tried some others as well. Prevacid worked the best. To help my son eat, I would run the vacuum while I nursed. The sound calmed him down so he could focus. There are other sounds that can calm down babies too and there are CDs you can buy with sounds like vacuums and hairdriers. I had to use them in the middle of the night since that was the hardest time for me to get him to latch on and eat. I couldn't tell if she was nuring or using a bottle. It seems as if he needs to be on the acid reflux medicine if taking him off makes him cry.

B.-

If formula fed, try a different type. Sometimes infants are allergic. It's suggested boys avoid soy based formula. Soy contains too much estrogen for boys.

If breastfed, have your sister keep a food journal. What Mom eats can effect the breastmilk. The baby may be allergic to something Mom is eating.

I also strongly suggest your sister go back to the doctor, especially if the baby doesn't gain or loses weight.

Good Luck-

R. Magby

Hi B.,

First of all I want to say I know firsthand how stressful this can be. I have been through some similar experience with my baby and it turned out that he had both acid reflux and milk allergies. I nursed him almost a year and was off all milk products and everything that contains any amount of milk products duration of that time. As another mom mentioned my baby also tested negative for allergies but I was told these tests are not reliable until they are older.

As far as acid reflux goes, again as another mom wrote, prevacid worked pretty good. For us Zantac was useless. Seeing a pediatric GI was the best recommendation our pedatrician gave us. If the baby is bottlefed Similac Alimentum is a hypo-allergenic formula that works great. For babies that are sensitive to even that are usually given Neocate. We were given samples of both by the GI.

I wish your sister and her baby all the best and hope that they'll find a solution that'll comfort the baby soon.

My baby was the same way at about that age. She was also diagnosed with acid reflux. We put her on lansoprazole and it took care of it beautifully. She is now almost 8 months old and I've stopped giving it to her the last few days and she is doing just fine. I would follow your doctor's advice. It sounds like the reflux is the issue. Keep working with your pediatrician on this to find the best treatment.

Don´t rule out allergies even if tests show up negative. This happened to my daughter and she has severe dairy and gluten allergies. Consider seeing a homeopath as well as a regular dr. just in case.

If he is allergic don´t be discouraged, its daunting in the beginning but then after all he will most likely eat healthier than the most of us.

Good luck,
H

Good Start formula worked for my grandson,after trying many others and with a doctors supervision.

When my daughter started having trouble nursing, it turned out she had an ear infection. She didn't really have any other symptoms to speak of, other than not wanting to eat and crying a lot when she tried to nurse. If your sister hasn't been to the doctor since her baby started having trouble with eating, she might consider having his ears checked. Good luck!

Hi, When she was 3 weeks old my baby couldn't nurse without choking, screaming, spitting up. Very stressful. We took her to the pediatrician (not our regular one) suspecting reflux. The doctor agreed and we started her on Zantac and Mylanta. The first day was better but then we were right back where we started. We went back to our regular pediatrician who figured that my milk was letting down too quickly, making her choke and cry. She said to hang in there and my supply would eventually regulate. It seemed to have worked because after a few weeks nursing became much more peaceful. I had assumed that because my first daughter didn't have any nursing issues that my body would respond the same way for #2. Wrong! Good luck - feeding issues are so stressful with little ones!

In our case it was both reflux AND an allergy to milk *protein* (casein). Babies sensitive to this are usually sensitive to soy as well, so if on formula, switch to one that has neither; if breastfeeding, eliminate all dairy (including butter and anything else with milk, caseinate, whey, etc.) and soy (including any soy derivatives. It takes about 2 weeks to cycle out all the casein but you should see improvements sooner than that if this is the problem. Milk protein allergy causes lesions in the bowels--ouch! This is different from lactose intolerance or allergy (to milk sugars).

Has she tried feeding only sitting up? What about getting a sling/wedge that the baby can sleep on at night- You can harness them in so that the can still sleep on their back. Probiotics worked for my little guy. Maybe try another medication-only one worked for us. I would highly recommend taking him to a GI specialist ( peds of course)
L

This post is a bit late, but I hope this helps.

My daughter was a silent refluxer and my son had reflux, too. It took awhile to diagnose my daughter, but she had an awful time of eating. She was exclusively breastfed, I tried elimination and nothing helped. She was put on Zantac which helped some until she learned to spit it out (it's foul tasting). We then tried Prevacid and it, too, only helped a bit.

After a year, when she should have outgrown the problem, I took her to a naturopath and she was put on Bifidus and Glutemine. Her reflux was better in days.

With my son, he had major problem from day one. His digestive system didn't get cleared during birth (1.5 hours of labor from start to finish wasn't enough time to squeeze out the amniotic fluid). At 2 weeks he was still having extreme trouble keeping milk down and getting enough. He had major gas problems right after feeding and difficulty getting him to burp.

I took him to our naturopath and she put him on 1/4 tsp. Bifidus. Wow, I finger fed it to him and within days, he was eating, his gas problems decreased tremendously and he was so much happier.

I highly recommend probiotics. There are some that are better for baby digestive tracts than others. Two that I know of are Bifidus and Primadophilus. You can find Primadophilus at Fred Meyer (Kroger) stores in the natural foods refrigerated case. Just finger feed 1/4 tsp. once a day and see if it helps. I know it did wonders for both of my kids. And my son was only 2 weeks old when we started him on it.

Good luck to your friend and her baby.
D.

Besides going back to the doctor, have her look in her baby's mouth. If there is white cottage cheese type spots inside his mouth, he may have thrush. It is painfull for babies to eat with thrush. Even if he has this, he has to go to the doctor to get medicine for this.

-- keep 'holding her hand' - and be sure she stays on top of doctors --- the right test ( my thought would be an ultrasound) might clear up the question with little distress to baby---

SO tough when tiny ones are having an issue--
Blessings - J. - aka- Old Mom

Hi B.,

I am sorry to hear your nephew is having a difficult time.
Aloe Vera Juice is excellent for acid relux. For infants on formula you can mix the formula into the aloe juice. For breast fed babies momma drinks the aloe plus it can be given to baby in a bottle between feedings a few sips at a time. It worked wonderfully for my grand kids.

I use Herbal Aloe Concentrate made by Herbalife. It also has the calming and soothing herb Chamomile. The concentrate makes a full gallon.

I hope your sister and baby feeling better soon. Let me know if you have any questions.

I. Schmeck "herbaliva"
Holistich Health Practitioner & Herbalife Indep. Distributor
www.herbaliva.com
IM: herbaliva