Noah's Reflux Story...Part 1

Well, it has been a long couple of weeks at the Leptuch household. This is what has been going on with Noah and it is part 1 because we are not sure what the "real" answer is..

When Noah was about 4 weeks old, he started this thing where he would only sleep for 20 minute naps. There were the occasional longer ones, but he always woke up, like clockwork, 20 mins into it. Everyone kept saying that it will get better that he is just a baby, but it didn't. In fact, his sleep got worse. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that something must be wrong.

Noah has always been "gassy" (sorry TMI), so we started him on Mylicon gas drops. That seemed to help him out. Fast forward to 6 weeks old and the sleep was getting worse. Not only was he not napping more than 20 mins at a time during the day, he was NOT sleeping at night. We were lucky to get a 2 hour block of sleep. He would go to bed at 7pm and sleep until 9 or 9:30 and then wake up every hour after that. I would eventually feed him around 12 or 1 and then after that, he would wake up every 20-30 mins. He couldn't resettle. After a week of this and many sleepless nights, I made an appt to see our pediatrician.  I was doing a lot of research online to see if I could figure anything out. There had to be a medical reason for this. This is just not normal.

Ava had reflux as a baby, but she had many of the common symptoms, such as frequent spitting up and a lot of crying. Noah did not have those symptoms, so I didn't think of it right away. His symptom's were:
He never burped.
When he did burp, they were "wet burps"
Not sleeping
Belly distended
Just not comfortable at times
Weird eating habits.(He never seemed hungry, he would just eat when I fed him. He never seemed to want more or less. He didn't feed well towards the end, he would be squirmy and fussy)

I did read that sometimes babies with reflux will wake after 20 mins (the first light sleep cycle) because they are uncomfortable.

He is gaining weight like a champ, but I think that can be the reflux, because some babies will eat because it makes them feel better until it starts to come up. He never really cried for food. I just fed him every 3 hours. I started pumping and bottle feeding him last weekend so that I would know how much he was getting. He was eating about 4-5 oz a feeding. He is now 12 lbs 9 oz (as of 4/4/11). He is a big baby. I thought that maybe he wasn't sleeping because he was hungry. But after having his bottles, he still woke up.

At our pediatricians visit,based on our description, the doctor gave us Zantac as she said that it sounds like reflux.

A day later, Mike and I still didn't feel right, so we called a pediatric gastroentrology doctor.We got in the following day. She said that it could be reflux or a milk allergy. She put us on a 24 hour reflux relief medicine, Previcid. I guess Zantac wears off. She told us to try this for a couple of days and see if we see any improvement. If not, she gave us samples of formula that doesn't contain any milk protein. She noticed that the area around his bum was red and it has always been that way. She said that was common in babies that were allergic to milk. (But then again, it could just be Noah).  I am to just do formula for the next week. I am weening off the breastfeeding as it has been a challenge anyway. (It is painful, I might add). She also ordered a swallow test to make sure that the fluid isn't going back into his lungs. The area around his mouth turns blue after he eats and he is really phlegmy after eating and wheezing for a while after.

This has been frustrating and tiring all in one. I am not sure what we are expecting to see. I am just wanting to see him sleep, but I worry that after weeks of the same sleep pattern, it is going to take time to fix that and we won't know if anything is working.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that he will start sleeping better. Last night he did ok, but that is because we ended up holding him a lot of the night. I don't want to be doing that every night.