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We just went through this and my daughter is just now 15 weeks old. I would say it didn't really get better until week 8 or so. We tried some gas drops and probiotic drops. I cut dairy from my diet and that helped a lot.

In the end we waited it out because she was gaining weight really well. So the doctor said it was more of a messy problem than a medical problem.

My son would swallow the spit up and was obviously in a lot of pain- he would scream and not latch at night, I couldn't set him down, car rides were a horror show. We tried Zantac- it was like magic for three days then stopped working. We've been on omeprazole for a month and it's working well.

@goldengirl I'll spare you my horror show of a story, but I think if I was doing all the "lifestyle" recommendations already (i.e. - smaller more frequent paced feeds, hold upright, burp throughout feed, try sensitive formula, don't sleep flat, etc) and baby was still suffering, I would probably start Zantac.

My understanding is if baby is just spitting up a lot but not in discomfort or pain, just ride it out. If baby is screaming, crying, not sleeping, arching, etc., I would medicate, personally.

For us, we had to do Zantac + adult dose of Nexium (under pediatric GI's orders) + Carafate to coat + total elimination diet while breastfeeding. Although I certainly wouldn't jump to that, I don't think I'd just "wait it out" if baby is really suffering.

Medication! I cannot stress enough how much this changed everything for us. My first cried all the time due to his reflux pain until we got him on the right medication. He was like a different child once he was finally feeling better.

Both of our kids had acid reflux. Our youngest one had it worse (projectile vomiting), but he was always happy about it. We made sure not to put our kids on their backs for 30 minutes after eating and also switched formulas. Enfamil A.R., which has rice protein added, was a godsend!

@Goldengirl: oh, mine was nursing every 45 minutes or so- we spaced it out to 2-3 hours. Sounds like you're doing what you can! Fwiw I really resisted the medication because my son was gaining weight like a champ. In the end our pediatrician felt pretty strongly that he was in pain and we should try it to address the colic symptoms. He was/is like a different baby.

@goldengirl I know you are FF but look into paced feeding (the recommended way of feeding a BF baby a bottle) - it's a "slower" way to feed that might help.

I think most doctors will normally start on Zantac, then move to a PPI drug (i.e. Prevacid, omeprazole, or Nexium) if the Zantac is not getting the job done. If those do not work, I'd strongly consider at least a few days' trial of a hydrolyzed formula (Alimentum or Nutramigen).

@Goldengirl: Our ped said we would try Zantac and then move on to Prevacid if it didn't seem to work after a few weeks. We never had to go any further because Zantac did the trick!

Ah momma I feel for you! Our LO was so reflux until about 6 months old. We tried just about everything and even tried the medication but honestly for us we didn't see a huge difference enough to keep him on it. Our pediatrician kept telling us he would grow out of it as his system matured and he did. At 6 months he seemed to just stop completely. I know how frustrating it can be but it will pass. HUGS!!!

DS has reflux and has not grown out of it at almost 13 months. He always ate/gained well so I had to push really hard to get meds for him because he was so uncomfortable and not sleeping at all! Sometimes babies eat more because the milk soothes their throats temporarily but then causes more spit up, so it creates a vicious cycle. He also had a lot of respiratory illnesses and ear infections that pretty much stopped after starting Zantac. I found a great resource at refluxrebels.com

For the probiotic, you can either add it to the bottle or if you're nursing, put some on your nipple before he latches on. And gripe water really helped for us as well. Good luck!

We kept the baby upright for 30-45 minutes after feeding him. He didn't like his bouncer, so we held him upright or used placed him on his boppy. I changed him before feeding him eliminating the need to lay him flat soon after feeding him since his diaper wasn't super full.

LO grew out of reflux around 4 months.

@Goldengirl: at different times we have given LO probiotics. This is what we do with medicine, but would work the same for the probiotic drops. Take the bottle nipple and put a little amount of formula and the drops (Gerber is 5) and then hold the nipple while your little eats. You don't need a lot of formula in there since you are feeding your baby with an open nipple. Other times I would just put the drops in a 2 oz bottle and once LO finished that entire amount I would add more formula. If he didn't finish the rest at least I knew he finished his drops.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: those are such great tips!

We waited it out. It was a loooong year! The ped strongly felt we didn't need to medicate. DH wanted to try, but we didn't even use it.

My son had silent reflux and it seemed to act up when I ate dairy or peanut butter. I cut those in addition to adding Zantac. It made a huge difference in the quality of our lives for the first six months. He was no longer in pain every day and we were not constantly worried about our baby being in pain. We were able to wean off of it around 6 months with no issues.
I highly recommend it. The positives far outweighed any possible negatives (there were zero side effects for him)

DS1 was on Prevacid - our pharmacy compounded it for us into a solution that we shot into our son's mouth with a syringe once a day. It took about a week to wean off Zantac and for the Prevacid to kick in (during which he was worse than before) but then he was SO much better. As I said before, with our second child, we didn't even bother with Zantac and went straight to compounded Prilosec (our HMO stopped using compounded Prevacid for some reason). Part of the reason was that our first son had been in so much pain with silent reflux that he's always associated eating with discomfort. Like even after his reflux passed he was really finicky about his bottles and eating in general. He was slow to take up solids and self-feeding, he hated nursing, hated drinking out of bottles, and we fought him to drink enough in a day. He's 2 now and if anything is off about his day or his health, the first thing that shuts down is his eating. DS2 on the other hand we intervened right away and he's such a happier baby. Could be coincidence, but I just didn't want to have another child that didn't take SOME joy in eating.

@goldengirl did your ped or pharmacy give you no instructions on how to mix/dissolve the meds? I would be very cautious until you have excellent instructions. I would also recommend finding a good locally owned compounding pharmacy in your area, they should be able to make a compound which may be easier and safer vs. you making it yourself. When my son was on Prevacid, the compounding pharmacy made it for us and we just draw it up in syringes and give it to him that way.

He is on Nexium now which we have to make at home (the medicine is in powder granules and we mix with 15 mL of water). He's 15 months and we still just give it to him with the oral syringes. He is totally used to it and now opens up his mouth when it's time for meds!