I wrote this first part a long time ago, probably when Collin was about 5 months old, but then I never published it. I didn't want to leave it as a draft any longer. There is so much I could write about this- this was such a HUGE part of our life for the first bit of Collin's life- but this will do for now. So the first part is what I initially wrote about Collin's reflux. And then the last part is a little update because thankfully Collin has pretty much grown out of it!
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I have been thinking about blogging about this for awhile now, but didn't think it was a topic many people would be interested in. But I was talking to a good friend tonight and she encouraged me to blog about it. And you know what this may be kind of boring and gross, but it is a HUGE part of our daily life right now and as anxious as I am to be past this phase, I don't want to forget about it either. And as my friend said, this is something Collin's future wife will probably want to know about. So here it is, living life with a baby with acid reflux!
Looking back on that first month with him I can recognize the signs that he had reflux...we just didn't really know it then. The first day in the hospital he nursed just fine, but by the second day he started arching his back and screaming every time I tried to feed him. It took until he was a week old to get him to be able to nurse again. And when that finally happened he only wanted to nurse sitting up on my lap (it was pretty comical, and thankfully he will now nurse in the cradle position). Now, this did all coincide with him getting circumcised, which very well could have played a part in this too, but I strongly believe it was his reflux starting to appear. He would also just have periods of time where he would just arch his back and scream for a couple of hours. There were a number of nights where my mom and I were up until the wee hours of the morning just trying to rub his back and comfort him. Usually he would eventually wear himself out and fall asleep nursing. Those nights were rough! Somewhere around 2 weeks is when we started noticing the huge amounts of spit up. I think he always spit up a little (that time is a bit of a blur though, so its hard to remember) But I remember being so worried the first time he spit up so much. It was in the morning and I was feeding him in bed, and he spit up all down himself, it got on me and the bed. I was convinced that it was nearly his whole feeding! My mom reassured me that most babies spit up, but eventually she realized that Collin was not your "normal" spitter.
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First picture we have documenting his spitting up. If only all his onesies were still that white!
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Collin spits up a TON! I think most people think I am just an over-exaggerating first time parent, but spend a couple hours with us and you'll see that I am not joking. And it is not just after he eats. It is anytime- when we pick him up, when he does tummy-time, when we put him in the car seat, when we put him in the Beco front carrier (this one is the worst because of course it gets all over you too. Usually right down your chest if you are female. I've learned to burp him before putting him in it), when he is laying in his crib, when he sits in the Bumbo, right before he eats (even if it has been 3 hours since he last ate), when we're just sitting on the couch holding him, etc. You get the idea, right? We live life with a burp cloth within arm's reach...most of the time ;) And many times there is so much, it just pools in the burp rag.
More often than not Collin will burp at some point during the time it takes me to get him up from his crib after a nap to the time we get downstairs, but I still usually forget to bring a burp cloth with me. I did learn to just start holding him out so he spits up on the floor (especially downstairs where we have hardwood) since it's a whole lot easier to clean the floor than to change my clothes multiple times a day (which I often have to do anyways). Michael and I are becoming quite the pros at recognizing when Collin is going to spit up and applaud ourselves when we are able to catch it before it makes a mess ;) And we have learned to not burp him on our chest. I always sit him up on my lap and burp him that way. Or if he is arching his back (usually because he has to burp, but it is really uncomforable for him) then I lay him on his stomach across my lap. These are the most effective positions to catch the spit-up and avoid a huge mess.
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One of the many times it has hit the floor! This time his poor monkey was a victim! Now I try not to hold monkey where he is likely to get hit.
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I sent this to Michael one morning with the caption "Happy Valentine's Day from Collin"
Its a good thing I love that kid! (and that I hadn't showered yet)
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I am not a morning person to begin with, but most days we stay in our pj's until we really have to get dressed (either he spits up on me or we are going out). The way I see it there's no point in dirtying more clothes than we need to, especially when we do enough laundry to begin with! ;) Collin usually goes through at least a couple outfits a day (thank goodness we have lots of hand-me-downs so we have enough clothes to rotate through). And we never leave home without at least 4 burp cloths in the diaper bag, an extra blankie, and outfit for him. And if we plan on being gone all day, we have an extra "extras" bag with more burp cloths, and a change of clothes for all of us. We own probably around 40 burp cloths (I've never counted them all because they are never all clean at the same time). And we use them all! 20 of which are the super absorbent Gerber cloth diapers. These ones are the best!! The homemade ones are good (and we really appreciate all the people who have made them for us) but they are really only good for a one time use.
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Just some of our many burp cloths!
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Now I am sure there are plenty of people that worry if Collin is really ok. Don't worry I do too! But we discuss it at every doctor's appointment and our pediatrician said as long as he is a "happy" spitter and gaining weight then to just give it time and he will most likely grow out of it. Well it is obvious that Collin is having no problem with gaining weight! And for the most part he is not bothered or uncomfortable when he spits up. He has been on Zantac since he was a month old to help with the discomfort and we have noticed a tremendous difference in his behavior since he has been on it. He is much happier and cries way less often than when he wasn't on it. We try to keep him at the lowest dose possible, why give him more medicine than needed, but we can always tell when it is time to up his dosage- he cries a lot more, arches his back when you try to burp him and seems uncomfortable when he spits up. At one month we started him at 1.5 ml (if I remember correctly) and now at 5 months he is at 2.8 ml. We have been keeping him at 2.5 for awhile, but just this week we have seen the signs that it is time to up his dosage. We do it in small increments just in case he does fine on a smaller dosage, but unfortunately that wasn't cutting it and we had to up it to the full 2.8. I am not anti medicine, but I'm also not one to take medicine unless I feel its really necessary. But in this situation I am extremely grateful for modern medicine to help Collin feel more comfortable and happy! There's nothing worse than knowing that your baby is in pain and you can't do much for him.
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Looking through my pictures I'm surprised I don't have more pictures like this- mid spit-up. This one was captured during one of his monthly photo shoots.
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Now when most people find out about Collin's spit-up problem, they ask about food sensitivities and if I have tried eliminating foods from my diet. Yes we have. And no we have not had any success. I've tried a lot off the common ones- dairy, peanuts, acidic food, etc. But we never saw any significant difference- naturally Collin has some bad days and some better days. In my opinion if he is sensitive to some foods it is probably multiple things and that would be really difficult to determine what combination of foods it is. Our pediatrician said to not stress over it. Any potential allergies will present themselves later when we start introducing foods. Again, as long as he is gaining weight and relatively happy then it is just a waiting game until he grows out of it. And eliminating foods from my diet is often not the best option since it deprives him of important nutrients. For this I am extremely grateful- eliminating foods is rough...especially dairy!! I sure love my dairy :)
Having a baby with acid reflux is hard! Sometimes I imagine what it will be like if/when we have a baby that doesn't spit up. And on his especially hard days it can be really depressing when he nurses and then immediately spits up most of his feeding. And yes, it makes me nervous that this could be the start of something more serious like allergies or intestinal problems, who knows! But for now all we can do is hope and pray that he will be comfortable, and will grow out of this soon. (The doctor did say there is the possibility that when we start giving him solids- which will be really soon- his symptoms could improve. I would love it if that's that case for him!) But in all other areas he is a healthy, happy and strong little boy! He has been hitting all of his important milestones ahead of the average time. And he really is so happy and social. For all the frustration and headache his reflux gives us, how can you not help but smile at that adorable face!
We love you Collin...spit up and all!
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Thankfully Collin has grown out of his spitting up...about 99% of the time! I say 99% because he will still spit up occasionally, but it is just a tiny amount and usually pretty random.
We started seeing some significant improvements when he was about 9/10 months (July/August). This also corresponds with the time that he started eating more finger foods...solid foods stay down better :) Which was funny because we were in CA at the time, and my sister's family hadn't ever met him. So they had heard so many stories about how much he spits up and then he hardly spit up when we were in town. I could have probably started to decrease his medicine during this time, but I didn't want to mess with it while we were traveling and he was is in new surroundings and not sleeping well to being with. So we waited until we were home and readjusted to Texas time. At first we were slowly just weaning him off of it. Mostly his morning dose, and a occasionally a little from his night dose. We had tried weaning his night dose a while before and he started waking up at night, so we were focusing most of our efforts on the morning one. And then one morning I forgot to give him his medicine and he did totally fine! And then shortly after that we forgot his night time one, and again he did pretty well!
So the highest he ever got was 2.8 mL, twice a day (morning and night). His last morning dose was on September 3rd, we had weaned him down to 1.3 mL. And his last night was on September 9th, and he had gone down to 2.2mL.
Near the end I felt like I was really using his medicine as a crutch of sorts. I hard time getting him off of it because I was worried how he would do after having been on it since he was 1 month. It really helped that we just forgot the medicine, because we would have probably just kept very slowly weaning him off, which turns out wasn't necessary. Its great to have him off it, not have to wrangle him to take it, and not have to pay for it each month! But I still occasionally have the thought as we are getting him ready for bed, "oh no, we forgot his medicine!"
And now a couple spit up incidents that I just don't want to forget.
1) One Saturday Michael had to go downtown to do a couple things at his office (I am thinking this was either in November or December so Collin was just a couple months old) so we decided to make it a family outing. I must have fed Collin in his office and then he needed a diaper change. And I don't exactly remember the whole process of things, but within the few minutes it took to burp and change him every layer of my clothing (shirt, pants, underwear, ca
mi, bra...probably even my socks. Thankfully I had taken my jacket off) had been soaked with spit up! And I am pretty sure that the chair and carpet didn't get off scotch free either ;) It was a good thing it was a Saturday because I basically stripped down in the bathroom and gave myself a little sponge bath. Needless to say we headed home shortly after that.
2) This great picture was captured one night shortly after Michael got home from work. Collin was being all cute and snugly with Michael and then he decided to spit up, barely missing his mouth! Its his sign of affection ;)
And just a month or so ago Collin randomly spit up and hit his target- Michael's mouth!
So here is to no longer leaving our mark wherever we go, a much lighter diaper bag, a considerable decrease in our laundry, and crossing our fingers our future babies don't make us deal with this all over again. Although it would be a pity to not use all those burp rags again ;)
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