OK....

Brooke is on S26 anti reflux formula, and it is very thick...but when she has a flare up, she sicks from one feed to the other (4 hours apart) does the thickened formula stay in her tummy longer?

I asked at the chemist today wether they have a formula that goes through her tummy quicker and they do, but only on perscription.....Has anyone tried it, and does it make a difference to reflux?

I am at present thinking of going OFF of the anti reflux formula and back to a normal one......Any comments on this?

Does thickening make any real difference?

Thanks ladies....As usual my brain is full of how to beat/make reflux more liveable for my Brooke...It consumes my waking hours :hategerd:

I was hesitant about thickening, as I breastfeed, so pumping all feeds was too much to bare. I tried iit unsuccessfully in the past. Now at 9 months, she still woke every 45 min all night long, screaming. At my wits end, I thickened, and last night , she only woke up twice. It has made a huge difference for us. I try to not thicken during the day, but she chokes and refluxes now. So my advice is to try a couple non thickened feeds during the day, and see what happens. If naps become ****, or the baby is cranky, I would continue with thickening. For us, since she has started thickened feeds, she has completely stopped accepting solids. I guess she gets all her calories from all the cereal she is eating. And it gave her lots of poops at first, but now she has adjusted. She is still very gassy, despite us using oatmeal instead of rice

You can thicken normal formula, infant gaviscon thickens it or use rice cereal (I think) we had no success with thickening it. I have never used prescription formula but I am assuming it is one of the ones the girls use here. A friend of mine did use it for constipation and it didn't help.

(((hugs))) I am sorry that you are having a hard time, I know how you are thinking at the moment I have been there, you will work it out eventually and she will get a lot better... unfortunatley it is a process of elimination.

[[[hugs]]] to you.
I'm going to say, I don't know, LOL, I would think that it takes longer for their tummies to digest, simply because it is thicker, but I can not be sure.

Thickening does help us, for some reason, we he would drink it non thickened he would cry and pull away, thickened seems to help it go down easier. And if you have a puker, helps it to stay down, (or that is the theory at least)

I'm w/Rachel, it gets better, you will figure out what works for her. {{{hugs}}} again.:hug:

Ditto what Rachel said:)

I hope you get it worked out soon!

for us it worked , plus there are getting more calories and they need as many as they can get. We put one teaspoon per ounce, so a four once bottle gets four teaspoons rice cereal. Just stir it up good and you will have to either cut x's in the nipple or buy the ones that are for cereal bottles.

We thickened all of Sam's bottles when he was on them still. We started to do it because he would choke on the liquid and he would puke all the time. We finally did a swallow study to determine if he was aspirating with the thin liquid and he was so we continued to thicken it so he wouldn't aspirate. He still puked with the thickened liquids so I don't know how much it actually helped with the reflux, but at least he wasn't aspirating.

I guess to answer your question, I think you should try it both ways and see what happens. Sam wasn't as hungry with his thickened formula ( we used 3 tablespoons/oz) so I started feed Sam his fruit or veggie first as if he were having a meal, and then offer the bottle after that and let him take as much as he wanted. Some days it was the whole 4 oz others it was barely anything. This way he was still eating solids and he still got his bottle if he wanted it. One word of caution though - make sure she is getting the appropriate amount of liquids.

We started thickening Ashleys formula after she was discharged from the hospital and it seems to have helped. She is now on Enfamil AR, with the rice in it and it is already thickened. She does not spit up as much. She also had trouble with aspiration. Our ped swears by Enfamil Ar for the reflux babies.