Advice needed

[Bodza]

My little girl (7 weeks old) has moderate silent reflux. She keeps chocking on her bottle ( apperantly due to her still needing to learn to coordinate swallowing and breathing but also her reflux is playing a big part in this I believe) .we were told to use carobel but by the time she actually finishing a bottle the milk is so thick that she can't suck it out. Also I only gave it to her twice so far (1 scoop with 90 ml breastmilk: 1 feed) and she was clogged up for 2 days so I can't imagine how constipated she would get if she got it with all feeds. Also the milk still came back to her throat so she would need even more of the carobel added to her milk. Do you have any experience with carobel and do your babies get constipated by it? Also how do you handle that and how much carobel do you put in per feed? Has it helped anyone? She is also trialing sma athera ( hydrolysed milk still containing milk) but she hates the taste ( as it taste awful) . I will push her to be on sma alfamino, as that one has no dairy in it at all. How can I get her to drink it and get use to the awful taste. She's been on breastmilk and as long as I have enough she will be on that. However I don't know how long I can keep my supply. Her reflux seems to get worse ( lots of crying) which has just started this week. Any advice would be highly appreciated 😊❤️ xx

[Cheekymonkey85]

I can’t offer any advice with regards to the reflux and use of carobel, but with the awful tasting milk I’ve seen lots of posts where mums add a drop or 2 of vanilla extract to help improve the taste. I can’t see any harm in trying that xx

[roxannacar]

Im a bit confused. Firstly any medication be it carobel/gaviscon etc will thicken the milk and cause baby not to go as often. Two days isn't long as long as their not struggling big time. It doesn't really matter if they are not pooing every day. You seem to be treating for reflux and cmpa, is it worth trying one treatment as a time? Is your gp leading on this? You say you're breastfeeding but giving hydrolysed milk, this is confusing. Are you having a dairy free diet yourself? If so no need for hydrolyzed formula. The more formula you give the less milk you will have unless you pump to make up for it. If you're not following a dairy free diet yourself then then giving hydrolysed formula isn't going to work. I might add that alfaminos taste even worse than hydrolysed formulas.

Make sure you're getting good advice.

[Bodza in reply to roxannacar]

I'm expressing my breast milk and give it to her in a bottle as she chocks on my breast

[roxannacar in reply to Bodza]

Expressing is ok, but you have a dairy free diet if you're trying to go dairy free and you don't need extra formula if so. Maybe try see a lactational consultant if breastfeeding is tricky

[Whataname]

Try not to mix carobel directly to the feed. What I did was to mix carobel with little breast milk and give it in spoon first before the feed. So the milk doesn’t thicken up before she drinks but it will still thicken up in her tummy. Hope this helps. Car over did not work well for us and we were given gaviscon which was better.

[Hidden]

Hi, my wee girl was 4 weeks premature and I breastfed her - she had acid reflux until she was 5 months old and then it just cleared up I tried syringe feeding her something the GP gave me for acid reflux but it didn’t work and actually made her throw up. In my experience it was better to feed her regularly and keep her upright for at least 25 mins after each feed - night time too, and put up with being sicked on quite a lot. She could cry so hard she would throw up - if the dog barked at a cat and gave her a fright! But was mostly a happy baby so that wasn’t so bad. If in doubt speak to your health visitor or GP again, and although it can be hard I think keep going with breastfeeding or express and use a bottle. Good luck!