I don't know why, but ever since he entered the "spit up phase", I've been suspicious of reflux. Just sort of a feeling I had. There wasn't really anything else.
Then his weight gain slowed down. Way down. He was born at 8 lbs 12 oz, then was 12 lbs 3 oz at 2 months. Not too bad. I expected him to drop a little in percentiles since he was such a giant baby and the rest of us are not giant people. Then at 4 months, he was 13 lbs 11 oz. Another drop in percentiles (even on the WHO chart) but still not cause for *too* much alarm yet. Then we had his 6-month visit and his weight was only 13 lbs 13 oz, putting him solidly off the chart.
Sometime between his 4 and 6 month visit, I went to an IBCLC (I had been weighing him at home, too, on my postal scale). At the time, she was not concerned about his lack of substantial weight gain, b/c overall he was a happy baby.
And he remains happy, most of the time. Except for the past week or so. He's been fighting bedtime. Usually I can nurse him and then lay him down and he'll go right to sleep. But lately, I'll nurse him until he's just barely asleep, then I'll lay him down, then 5 minutes later, he's awake again, crying. So I pick him up and nurse him again. This process repeats itself for a couple of hours.
Another new "trick" that he's doing happens when I offer nursing to him. He'll either refuse it altogether when I know he has to be hungry (i.e. like it's been 3-4 hours since he last ate), or he will attack it so voraciously, it causes me pain at latch-on.
When I compare his spit-up to DD's spit-up, it seems like DS is spitting up more often. He'll spit at nearly every feeding and sometimes several times over the course of 20 minutes or so. He does not do it "with" a burp but rather in between burps. I remember DD's spit-up being creamy and thick-ish, like a powdered-sugar glaze. DS's is watery and looks more like a suspension of two insoluble items rather than a creamy emulsion.
My DD also dropped off the charts, but not this much, this early. I don't know why else he wouldn't be gaining. Everything I've read about reflux babies is that 1) it's usually more obvious early on, like within a few weeks/months instead of later on and 2) they are terrible sleepers. Once DS gets to sleep, he sleeps fine. Except lately, he's been waking up in a bad mood instead of in a good mood.
But his overall mood... I've heard that reflux babies are generally fussy all the time. I don't think that DS is like that. He's usually a smiley baby. All our IRL friends always comment on how happy he "always" is (except they're not here at 8-10 p.m. when he's not sleeping, lol).
I did count his wet/dirty diapers several weeks ago, and he had 9 wet diapers/day and about 2-3 poopy diapers/week (big ones, he holds it in and saves it up), so the output is there and I'm not concerned about a supply problem on my end.
Anyway his doctor prescribed Prevacid for him (the other options were to get more into him via a SNS, or to thicken his feeds w/ cereal). I haven't been able to get the prescription filled yet, but that is another story altogether (insurance is holding things up).
Thanks for reading this. I know it's long. Does it sound like it even could be reflux at all, or is something else causing him to stay so tiny?
Then his weight gain slowed down. Way down. He was born at 8 lbs 12 oz, then was 12 lbs 3 oz at 2 months. Not too bad. I expected him to drop a little in percentiles since he was such a giant baby and the rest of us are not giant people. Then at 4 months, he was 13 lbs 11 oz. Another drop in percentiles (even on the WHO chart) but still not cause for *too* much alarm yet. Then we had his 6-month visit and his weight was only 13 lbs 13 oz, putting him solidly off the chart.
Sometime between his 4 and 6 month visit, I went to an IBCLC (I had been weighing him at home, too, on my postal scale). At the time, she was not concerned about his lack of substantial weight gain, b/c overall he was a happy baby.
And he remains happy, most of the time. Except for the past week or so. He's been fighting bedtime. Usually I can nurse him and then lay him down and he'll go right to sleep. But lately, I'll nurse him until he's just barely asleep, then I'll lay him down, then 5 minutes later, he's awake again, crying. So I pick him up and nurse him again. This process repeats itself for a couple of hours.
Another new "trick" that he's doing happens when I offer nursing to him. He'll either refuse it altogether when I know he has to be hungry (i.e. like it's been 3-4 hours since he last ate), or he will attack it so voraciously, it causes me pain at latch-on.
When I compare his spit-up to DD's spit-up, it seems like DS is spitting up more often. He'll spit at nearly every feeding and sometimes several times over the course of 20 minutes or so. He does not do it "with" a burp but rather in between burps. I remember DD's spit-up being creamy and thick-ish, like a powdered-sugar glaze. DS's is watery and looks more like a suspension of two insoluble items rather than a creamy emulsion.
My DD also dropped off the charts, but not this much, this early. I don't know why else he wouldn't be gaining. Everything I've read about reflux babies is that 1) it's usually more obvious early on, like within a few weeks/months instead of later on and 2) they are terrible sleepers. Once DS gets to sleep, he sleeps fine. Except lately, he's been waking up in a bad mood instead of in a good mood.
But his overall mood... I've heard that reflux babies are generally fussy all the time. I don't think that DS is like that. He's usually a smiley baby. All our IRL friends always comment on how happy he "always" is (except they're not here at 8-10 p.m. when he's not sleeping, lol).
I did count his wet/dirty diapers several weeks ago, and he had 9 wet diapers/day and about 2-3 poopy diapers/week (big ones, he holds it in and saves it up), so the output is there and I'm not concerned about a supply problem on my end.
Anyway his doctor prescribed Prevacid for him (the other options were to get more into him via a SNS, or to thicken his feeds w/ cereal). I haven't been able to get the prescription filled yet, but that is another story altogether (insurance is holding things up).
Thanks for reading this. I know it's long. Does it sound like it even could be reflux at all, or is something else causing him to stay so tiny?
