Help desperately needed

[Libbys Mummy]

Not sure where to post this as we have lots of issues at the moment.  Have a 23 mo dd and 2 week old ds with very bad reflux (currently waiting on a ped appt. in January, but he is on Zantac and Gaviscon for now which doesn't seem to be working at all.) 

First question  how do we combine E.A.S.Y to work for them both and us?  DD is on 7am-7pm with a 1.5hr nap from 1.30pm.  Bathtime and bedtimes are chaos especially as I can't lay down DS because of the reflux and even the baby chair scrunches up his stomach and he gets hiccups and screams his head off, which then makes the reflux worse.

I am trying to breastfeed with not much success as DS so sleepy on the breast from day one (didn't feed for first 4 days as he was full of mucus) and my milk didn't come in until day 5.  I am now putting him to the breast for a bit, expressing and topping up with formula where needed.  Trouble is, if he overeats then his reflux gets really bad and of course I can never tell how much he has taken.  I am only able to express about 2-3 ozs in the morning if I am lucky and then 1-2ozs throughout the day.  Feeling pretty depressed that the bf isn't going well.  Had meds from the doctor to help with supply, but no real change now I'm off them.

Tried giving DS 6pm feed after his bath and then put him down at 7.30pm, it takes him so long to settle what with wind (always worse pm) and then we are back round to another feed, which then takes over 1 hour to give and wind, hold upright etc.  Dinner for us is then at around 9.30pm and then we try and give him a dreamfeed at 11.30pm or a little earlier depending on how the earlier part has gone.  He wakes up around 3-4am and then if his wind isn't too bad or reflux settles then I can get him off around 5.30am and then we are up at 7am for another round.  He loves sleeping upright, but as soon as I lay him down his eyes open and he starts crying.  My DD had reflux, but the first couple of months are all a bit of a blurr as we didn't have any help living abroad at the time.  DS
s reflux seems worse, but that might just be me blocking out the terrible time we had with DD in the beginning.   Like to find a support group for reflux infants in the U.K. if poss.

Anyway, any feedback would be much appreciated.

[Shellha]

If you have been there before with your first LO then this is probably not news to you, but is your DSs cot/moses basket elevated? I found it helped heaps, as did keeping my DS upright for at least 20 mins after a feed. I also BF him sitting upright as opposed to lying across me.

I also went off all dairy products and limited my wheat intake as both can affect reflux babes when BF.

My Ds and I also visited a homeopath and that seemed to work wonders. Have you also investigated cranial osteopathy? It didn;t do anyting for me but one of my friends saw the most incredible change in her LO after 2 sessions - from waking every hour during the night with wind/pain to sleeping 12 hours a night!!!!

HTH x

[rebecaq]

Hi Libby's Mummy,

Big Big {{{HUGS}}} to you.

Sorry to hear you're going through such a hard time at the moment, but let's see what we can do to improve things for you.  Shellha gave you some great advice.  Another mommy with a reflux baby had a"trick" she did which worked really well for her. She would nurse in a real quiet room and count how many swallows her lo did.  I think that 80-100 was a full feed and would fire up his reflux, so she would count until 60-70 and then pull him off the breast. Enough for her to know he got a good amount of milk, but not enough to make his reflux act up.

As for the bf, a pump is good tool, but don't let it get you down. It doesn't show accurately how much your baby may be drinking.  I always recommend the pump to get the "make milk!" signal to the brain. Also to store milk for df and such.  When my ds was 7 months old and bf I started pumping again ( I had stopped because it wasn't needed) to store milk for dh to be able to feed him at night. I only pumped 3 oz! I was freaking out!!  I went to a lc and we weighed ds before a feed, fed him and the weighed him again. Lo and behold he gained 9 oz! Meaning he got 9 oz of bm.  Just goes to show 

I think for now, try to get a good bf relationship built with ds. He's only 2 weeks old. Babies don't really "get" the routine until they are 6 weeks or more.  EASY since birth is great to get you used to the motions of it and to keep accidental parenting at bay.  Try to get ds to nap at the same time as dd so you can have a lay down also.  I'm sure you're doing a great job! It's hard having 2!

Let me know how you get on 

- Beca

[victoriab]

So sorry to hear that you are going through such a difficult time right now.  I think my LO had reflux since she was born, however, it was never diagnosed (the doctor just kept telling me it was normal).  She would spit up so much after bf and when I would lay her down flat, she was also very fussy when laying down.  I elevated the head of her crib and also kept her more elevated while feeding and after feeding (I would put her in a bouncy seat or swing for at least a half hour).  These things really seemed to help.  She began spitting up less and now doesn't spit up much at all.  It took some patience and the help of another BW mom to help me figure things out, but we seem to have gotten past it. 

I hope that you will find some useful advice that works for you and your lo.  Good Luck and hang in there.  We are all here to help and support you anytime you need us.

[Libbys Mummy]

Thank you all so much for your support and advice.  It really is very much appreciated. 

The BF isn't going well at all.  He now won't take the breast at all, so I can only give him what I can manage to express, which isn't very much, about 5 ounces a day!  He is currently taking 4 ounces at each feed, so the rest is formula.  I keep trying the breast but he gets very very windy where he keeps coming off and on.  It is difficult to go off to a quiet room when I have my DD to look after.  I just don't see how I can improve things.

Daytime is not too bad now as long as he isn't really windy.  We had raised his cot, but it doesn't seem to make much difference.  He is still sick sometimes or really uncomfortable.  Bedtime is an absolute nightmare.  I think the bath is too much for him before bed as he then seems to get very windy and uncomfortable.  I wonder if he also has colic as every night from about 6pm to 11pm he never settles.  We just seem to go from one feed to another until we finally get to the dreamfeed and then he eventually goes off after that.  He seems to want to continuously feed early evening, but we can't make out if it is because of the reflux, wind or he is genuinely hungry.  We don't rush to feed him, but by the time we have tried everything else 2 hours have gone by and with all the crying he is hungry again and it is time for his next feed.  Can't avoid the feed to sleep at the moment as by then we are dreadiing changing his nappy or anything to make sure he goes down awake.  I just can't work out what we are doing wrong.  I don't remember my DD being this bad, but my DH seems to think she was.  At the moment he seems to nap quite well for the first 3 naps waking up from the last one by 4pm, but we can't get him down for the catnap.  Sometimes he sleeps in his chair before bath and then it all seems to go wrong from there.  His reflux suddenly gets really bad (we feed him after his bath for that reason) and he seems to have stomach cramps or bad wind.  Anyway, what do you recommend as a bedtime routine at this age?  Should I try the bath at a different time, if so when?  How do we cluster feed with reflux baby who has to be up for 30 mins after a feed.  By the time we have done all of that it is time for his next cluster feed.  Also when should we be changing his nappy during the cluster feeds once it has been changed after bathtime?  Should he be awake for the cluster feeds?  How do I get two to bed at a reasonable time?  If I put DS to bed before DD if he doesn't settle, how do I deal with DD?  How do you bathe and put to bed a toddler and newborn on E.A.S.Y.?  So many questions I'm sorry, but I feel so lost at the moment and struggling to cope with DS being so unsettled from early evening. 

DS seems to generally be a very calm baby except when he is in pain with reflux or wind.  Most of the time I can lay him down swaddled and he'll just go to sleep on his own for naps if he doesn't have wind, which is why I am so confused as to where I am going wrong at bedtime.  Sometimes though, I'll lay him down for nap (always the catnap) and he'll lay there with his eyes open for the whole time, but not cry out until it is time for his next feed.  What is that all about?  The other day he did it for every nap and never slept at all and then became very distressed at bedtime before and after his bath.  He then finally when down around 10pm and we did a dreamfeed at 11.30pm and he only woke once at 4am for a feed and then I had to wake him at 7.30am.

I think I am so tired and confused I can't see clearly what is going wrong, so any help would be great.