Medication

I was asking about spilling vs reflux in another thread, but thought I would seek some ideas here.

Looking at the Crying Over Spilt Milk website, Jackson fits many of the symptoms of reflux. It doesn't seem to bother him too much (and although frequent his spills are fairly small), but he is a slow weight gainer and I wonder if reflux is partially responsible.

Thanks! I have had a look at the site, and it seems it could go either way.

He is very hard to feed - he loses interest in the breast so quickly and is slow to gain weight. He feeds very quickly at first and then gets really fussy about taking more in.

I try to burp him regularly, but often if I pull him off the breast I can't get him on again - so I hate doing so, even though it is probably counter-productive.

If he did have reflux, would medication (I am guessing Losec) perhaps mean that he would feed better? Maybe he is fussing cos he feels ill?

If he actually has reflux, I would doubt the doctor would give you anything for it as it does not bother him.

Lauren was a mega spiller, to the point that I was having to change her 2-3 times after every feed. I took her to the docs about it and even if she did have relux they would not give me anything for it as she was what you call a "happy spiller". She just grew out of it and it has never affected her at all.

Also some babies are just slow weight gainers too. Keep an eye on things, but honestly I wouldn't stress hun! You are doing a wonderful job I am sure!

It could be something other than reflux.. something you are eating that isn't helping him with the wind etc. He probably feels full if hes got wind with all the air in his tummy which would contribute to the fussing and to the slow weight gain.

When a bub goes on meds for reflux they usually start with infant gaviscon and then if that doesn't work they move onto rantitdine or losec

My DS2 was similar to your baby, while my DD was similar to peachy's but she was hospitalized twice because she was failed to gain weight during first month (typical as she was a homebirth baby!) and my DS1 has silent reflux. so I didn't had easy babies and all of them was poor weight gain babies....but they do catch up eventually once they reach 12months

I have notice my DD & DS2's reflux and feeding improved dramatically when I removed dairy product off my diet. Just thought maybe you try to see if make any difference?

Edited by soph

Daniel was the same, not that fussed on eating. Instead of DH giving him a bottle of EBM at dream feed time we switched to formula and I find it interesting that once we did that he started gaining nice weights.. not that I'm saying this is something you should definitely try

Hey Laurie, Is J grumpy and squirmy about ten mins after feeding? that is an indication of reflux. If you are concerned get som infant gaviscon from the pharmacy and try that. Some babies stop eating because they know that once they have finished it hurts so it might be why he does not spend long on the boob. The infant gaviscon works by thickening the contents of his tum so it would help with the spilling also but we used it to see if Sophia was happier and in less pain without stuff coming up.
Forget about your Plunket nurse as i am sure you are doing a wonderful job