Hi all,

My Melieah will be 3 months on 1.6.05. She is on Prevacid solutabs (7.5mg) once a day....she is around 11 pounds. She was 5.10 at birth. She is growing and doing well for the most part. She still vomits a lot and often but is tolerating well for the most part.

The problems are: She at one point (if not more) a day gets REALLY cranky and screams and crys, kicks her feet and archs until she vomits (sometimes 5 minutes, others an hour or more.) This vomit is usually a lot and projectile. Then she wants to eat right after and sometimes goes to sleep like not all that just happened? It is generally 4-5pm o'clock when this happens and she is not a happy camper till bedtime. I give her meds at 830 pm. Does this mean that the meds are not holding her or maybe something else is going on? The ped is not concerned about the vomitting because she is gaining weight nicely. The other thought I have could it be the formula not agreeing with her?? She is on Nutramigen with rice cereal. There have been no changes to that since she was 5 weeks old, but this problem started about 2 weeks ago??? She has always vomitted and drippled when eating. She hasn't increased the amount of food she is eating.

2nd. She will only take 3-4 ounces at every feeding which means we are up about every 3-4 hours???? I read on the board for oct babies of "normal" babies taking up to 8 ounces and sleeping through the night??? Also she is up a lot at night with congestion. The ped said to give 0.4mL of decongestant. Well that doesn't do anything to help her. We run a warm mist humidifier. We have tried a cold mist and we have run both. Nothing seems to help the congestion. We have also been changing the air filter on the furance but ped said that could be the problem. No luck there. Any other ideas or meds that would help????

TIA
Carla
Arianna 1.6.04 ~ former refluxer
Melieah 10.6.05 ~ Prevacid

Carla,

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, lol, but my 11mo still takes 4oz bottles about every four hours. Around the clock. She's nowhere close to sleeping through the night.

Hi!
I have a four month old who was diagnosed with silent acid reflux at about one month of age. She initally started at 7.5 mgs of prevacid - at about two months, she started to show those same symtpoms - arching of the back, etc. We were then told to up her prevacid dosage to 1 full packet (she is on the granules of prevacid) and administer 1/2 in the am, and 1/2 in the pm. We were told that prevacid only lasts about 12 hours in a babies system. So if we gave Libby prevacid at 7 am, by 7 pm it was pretty much out of her system. This was the cause of the pain increasing at night. We also thickened her bottles. She is currently on alimentum and before, we were only doing 1 tablespoon per 2 ounzes - after we upped her medicine and did 1 tablespoon of cereal to every ounce, the symptoms of crying, arching her back, etc. went away for the most part.

I would call your doctor and ask for an increase in meds. If you are giving your daughter it at 8 at night, by 8 the next morning she has no meds in her system which might be why she is in pain during the day. I am not a doctor, but I would call your ped or speciailist and ask about the medicine. We were told reflux increases between three and six months which is why meds have to be increased sometimes.
Hope this helps!
Theresa

I'm with Lesley here! Cady's 12 mos. old now and she just started taking 6 oz. bottles three weeks ago. The most she would ever take before three weeks ago was 4 oz. feeds. BUT, she's the rare one who would take those 4 oz. every 2 hours during the day, bank up those calories and sleep the night through. Which your little one could build up to. Many three month olds are unable to take large feeds, and often are not sleeping through the night. For example, my perfectly healthy, happy first baby Kaylin, now five took smaller feeds until she started solids at 4 mos. She moved up to six oz. feeds at 4 mos. and 8 oz. bottles at 7 mos. Kaylin also did not sleep through the night until after her first birthday. My little Cady will probably never take any more than six as she just can't handle it and it ends up spilling out.

Hi, my little one will be 3 months old on the 7th of this month, he is also taking about 3 oz at a time, every 3 hours and gets up once in the night to eat, so you are not alone! My twins, who are now 4 were at least taking 6 oz. every 4 by this stage, but their ped. thought it was too much, they slept through the night at 14 weeks.
I read somewhere that babies do not wake in the night because of hunger, they wake because of their sleep cycle(maybe) and then realize that they are hungry. I don't know what to think about that!
Anyway, you are not alone. I am trying so hard to get Jackson to take 5 oz. at a time, but he gags and pushes it out of his mouth. Maybe I should try it with the first bottle of the day hmmm!

My daughter took smaller feeds for a long time and the only time I KNOW she will eat 6 ounces is first thing in the morning. The rest of the day she drinks 3-5 ounces. It took me a while to get this far lol. I slowly built her up over a month. I gave her 1/4 ounce more for a week then another 1/4 for another week... but i didnt do this until she was 4 months. It also seems that once she started solids she wanted more... weird but true!! My daughter, too ate/eats all day and sleeps all night - well doesnt wake to feed anyway.

Anyway, hope that helps a bit! Good luck.

Sam has never been able to tolerate large feeds. even with the G-tube he will not tolerate very large volumes and I have to run it in slow. And, still not sleeping thru the night at 1 year! My older son was a great sleeper, still is--he slept thru around 4 months but ate like a champ all day long.

Lauren is 9.5 mos. old and has just recently began taking 8 oz. bottles. She's down to 3 bottles a day with 3 solid meals. I've never heard of a 3 mos. old taking an 8 oz. bottle. Give her a bit more time to sleep thru the night too, every child is different.

Connor is 5 months old and still only takes 4 oz every 31/2 to 4 hours> I think at 3 months he would only take about 3 to 31/2 oz every 3 hours. He usually wakes 1 time for a feeding between 1:00 and 3:00 am

Sam just started to take more formula now and is 10 months old. He is taking 6-8 oz bottles finally, but he only takes a bottle about 3x a day now and is eating much more table food. It does get better, but it takes a lot of time!

Thanks all,

I guess maybe I didn't explain myself well. I am okay with her getting up to eat in the middle of the night. What I am trying to stop is getting up 6-7 times in the middle of the night.

Let me start again. I totally am with the person about increasing the med and have a call into the doctor. She is still vomitting at least one large vomit a day and several small ones. She arches and crys a lot. She is cutting back on eating and is only eating 2-3 ounces every 3-4 hours, with an occassional 4 ozs in there.

In the night she goes to sleep around 9pm. She sleeps well till 1ish. She is awake then to eat. From there on it is down hill. She is up every hour or 2 because of congestion, or so it seems. I use a cold mist humidifier. We use saline drops at bedtime and when she wakes to feed. We have used decongestant that seems to help nothing so I stopped. She did have her crib elevated but she seemed to sleep better on the couch when she got flat (several hours after feedings) so I decreased the elevation in the crib. I have tried tummy sleeping (With me in the room) but that doesnt make it better for her either. The only time she sleeps well is in the swing with it moving. I am afraid to get her used to that and then have to transition her later. (I put ODD in the car seat till 7 months and it was H*LL trying to transition her.) I am just looking for SOMETHING that will help my dear little one sleep better at night!!! She is not as or not at all congested during the day!!

Thanks again
Carla

P.S. Is it possible for babies this young to have severe allergies?? Like adults do and need an Rx allergy med??

Yes, some "normal" babies will take 8 oz. at that age and sleep through the night, but certainly not all. 3-4 oz. every 3-4 hours certainly sounds good to this mom of a GERDling. Evan could only manage 2 oz. at a time until after his second birthday.

Since the decongestant isn't working, have you tried an antihistamine to see if that works? Evan has to take Nasonex to help with the clear runny "reflux" nose. The cold mist humidifier and the saline drops did absolutely nothing for him, as did the bulb "snot extrator" thingie.

Yes, it is possible for young infants to have pollen allergies. My daughter suffered terribly last spring when she was just a couple of months. In fact, she had an antibiotic-resistant sinus infection from all the allergy and reflux crud for months 2-9 of her life. Rx allergy meds generally will not be prescribe until the child is 1. That's when my son started taking them daily, and 9 years later (he's 10 now), he still is.

Try a warm mist humidifier. We have more success with that. You do have to clean it well and often as the warm, moist environment is a breeding ground for germs.