Acid Reflux Update

Aidyn has now been on Zantac since last Tuesday...so about 9 days now. The Zantac has almost completely stopped the spit-up, which is great. However, he continues to scream and cry at night when we feed him. The Zantac is liquid and given twice a day. 1 mL in the mornings and 1 mL again at night.

Normally, Aidyn eats anywhere from 4-5 ounces per feeding. During the late morning, afternoon, and early evening feedings he eats the first half of his bottle, burps, and SOMETIMES will cry afterwards. The reasons he cries after burping is because of the reflux. As he burps, the acid burns his esophagus (throat) and obviously that hurts. He sometimes will cry for 15 minutes, but usually not too long before calming down. Unfortunately, the times that he does cry, he WILL NOT finish the second half of his bottle. This means we are usually feeding him again about 2 hours later.

At his night feeding around 9pm, he usually SCREAMS...not just cries. Sometimes he starts crying before we get to feed him and other times, like earlier, after he burps. The difference at night is that he screams and cries for about an hour and almost never finishes the bottle. Sometimes if we're lucky we can take a 20-30 min break and then he'll eat the rest.

When he only eats half (and sometimes finishes after a small break) it's hard to know when he'll eat again. Sometimes he actually makes it to the next 3hr feeding, but sometimes he wakes up and wants to eat within 2 hrs. This makes sense because he only eats half the regular amount.

His middle of night feedings around 1am and 4am (depending on how long he sleeps each night) go great. I think this is partly because he is hungry but still definately "groggy" and tired so he doesn't eat so fast and is more relaxed.

After his "scream fest" lastnight for over an hour, I decided I was going to call the dr back today. I called at lunch time and was referred to the lactation consultant, Gloria. I left her a message regarding the spit up stopping but screaming continuing and sometimes worse. She called back and said that he should not be screaming and crying still. She explained that the Zantac helps stop acid production but isn't doing enough to help Aidyn. For some children it does, but not all. She was able to call in a prescription for Prevacid. The Prevacid is a pill.

When Ben got home from the pharmacy and said that it was a pill I almost died. I said, "Are you kidding me? A pill ?!?!" I couldn't believe they would prescribe a pill for a 10 wk old baby. Luckily, it's a disolvable (sp?) pill that we mix with 1 teaspoon of water and then feed that "liquid" mix to Aidyn once a day in the mornings.

So we'll start the Prevacid in the morning. We'll see how it goes. Either way, once a day is definately better than twice. Hopefully he'll get the hang of "eating" water from a spoon after a few tries. :) I'll keep you posted.