Parents of babies with reflux, please provide any and all advice
My baby is nearly 6 months old and has gotten to the point where she screams at the sight of a bottle (formula fed). She is on famotidine and we just increased her dose, but I know it’ll take time for it to work.
This feels SO hard. My baby and I both cried together twice today and it’s not even noon. My job is to care for her and make sure she is clean and fed, and I feel like I’m failing at feeding her at this point. She cries because she’s hungry, but cries at the sight or feeling of the bottle. She struggles to latch onto it because she’s so worked up, and if/when she finally latches on and takes a sip, it’s like it hits her that eating means reflux, and she starts crying again.
We were in such a natural rhythm before. She always had reflux and CMPA, but we figured out the right formula for her, the right famotidine dosing, etc. She went from sleeping through the night to waking up to eat from not getting enough calories during the day. She went from eating every 2-2.5 hours to now every 3+ hours, hitting 6 hours the other night. Plus the unpredictability if her hunger will lead to her actually eating or if she will cry at the bottle because she knows it is associated with discomfort.
We bought Gelmix thickener to attempt, I’m tempted to try it in a completely different brand of bottle so she can associate a new bottle with that and hopefully less discomfort.
Is there anything else at all that I can do to take care of my baby’s discomfort and feeding needs?