Hellobee Boards

I have no idea, but that sounds horrible and I am really sorry your family is having such a tough time.

Are you willing to try a little formula? At the recommendation of my daughters NICU doctors, I thicken some my pumped breastmilk with enfamil ar. It has really helped us. you're breastfeeding, you could top your baby off with a small bottle. For us, when the gurgling is really bad, I add more formula to her bottles. On a good day, I hardly use any.

My son was on Zantac and gas drops for about a month when it stopped working. He went ten days without sleeping and just screaming and so we switched to Prevacid and did a two week run on Nutramigen with gas drops in every bottle while I eliminated more foods. I had already been off dairy and most soy and went off crucifers, beans, spices, nightshades, all caffeine, tea, coffee, booze, even decaf tea and coffee, soda, anything acidic and just pumped and froze during those two weeks. After two weeks I slowly added in one BM feeding a day until he was back on mostly breastmilk. It did take a few days for the Prevacid to kick in but between that and whatever I did to my milk he was a totally different baby within a month. He started Prevacid at 11 weeks and was off reflux meds by 5.5 months and I could eat everything without issue shortly thereafter. Coffee and chocolate were major crutches that I eliminated and I have a suspicion that really helped.

@Mrs Hedgehog: our reflux meds taste sweet also - the pharmacy should be able to help you with that problem. Can you get a referral to a GI specialist? Maybe they'll have other ideas.... Sorry you're dealing with this. Reflux suuuucks.

How is your let down? Do you think it's fast and he's screaming because he can't keep up? Have you tried bottle feeding to see if he still has the problem?

@lamariniere: @birdofafeather: Yes!! A chiro helped my son at about a month old. His reflux was terrible and we were at such a loss. Two visits later and he was a new baby! (Knowing what I know now, I also wish we would have had his tongue and lip ties clipped to also help him out.)

@birdofafeather: @coopsmama: @Kemma: thanks ladies! Glad it wasn't as kooky as I thought, and glad all of your babes had success with some kind of PT/Chiro intervention!

I have a newborn (3 weeks old now) and I also notice this when I breastfeed sometimes! As soon as the initial letdown begins and she's gulping away I hear this loud gurgling and churning coming from her tummy. It sounds so awful, and she does writhe around and randomly cry out after a while, due to discomfort. In her case it's not all out screaming. This happened with DD#1 too, so I've just accepted it as normal, since they aren't screaming/crying for long, just here and there. I guess what I'm saying is that while a bit of gurgling seems normal, in your case it sounds like it's having a pretty bad effect on your LO and who knows, a PT/Chiro might have the magic key. Sigh, I can't wait till they grow out of this though!

@Mrs Hedgehog: first of all, this is so hard and I'm sorry you're going through this! We had something similar with our son and what worked for us was Zantac, 3 sessions of massage therapy, a lactation consultant assessment, and my wife figuring out she had a fast letdown. She would manually express into a cloth before a feed and it made a world of difference. Good luck! It's so so hard to see them in pain.

I also agree with trying prevacid if he's just on zantac. I have a friend whose daughter was inconsolable during feedings due to reflux. Zantac didn't really help, but prevacid was life changing after two weeks when it fully kicked in.

@Mrs Hedgehog: do you have a forceful letdown that might be contributing to him swallowing a lot of air? How is his latch? I might try a LC to see what they say. I know baby chiro is controversial but I'd probably try it out on desperate situation.