10 WAYS TO HELP EASE REFLUX IN BABIES

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Read below to find out 10 ways, I helped to ease and prevent my baby’s reflux.

Since birth my daughter would get reflux. The projectile vomiting was at it’s worst, during the first few months of my daughters life. I remember each night, consisting of all of her onesies and bedding covered in vomit. It is so hard to watch your child go through something, that causes such discomfort. I became determined to find a solution and found myself researching reflux at every opportunity. The most helpful advice that I could relate to, came from other moms going through the same. Now I want to share the tips that have helped me, to ease and prevent reflux.

What causes Acid reflux?
Acid reflux is caused by stomach contents coming up into the esophagus. This happens because the muscle responsible for controlling food that enters the stomach hasn’t fully matured. It is the stomach acid that burns the oesophagus which causes baby pain and causes the sick.

The signs my baby shows for her reflux are:

Bringing up milk which can be projectile vomiting.

Arching the back during feeding

Crying and waking frequently

Coughing and hiccupping while feeding

Choking and gagging

Below are my 10 tips to help with your babies reflux:

1. Elevate when changing I bought a angled pillow so my baby doesn’t have to lay completely flat on her changing table. This really helps to prevent the reflux, especially when having to do a change after feeding because of a dirty nappy.

2. Frequent Feeds
Feeding less milk more frequently. As I exclusively breastfeed I find my baby will naturally want feeding more frequently because every time acid comes up the milk soothes her throat.

3. Introduce A Dummy
Using a dummy really helped to not only distract my baby from the discomfort of reflux, but to help with it too. A dummy helps to produce more saliva and to encourage swallowing saliva which helps to wash the acid down. My daughter is 6 months old now and no longer uses dummy, she found great comfort in using it to help at nap and bedtime when the reflux was at it’s worse.

4. Feed Upright.
Feeding baby in an upright position works best and prevents the reflux massively.
5.Holding upright for at least 45 minutes, worked best when the reflux was at it’s peak. Now I hold my baby upright for 20 minutes because the reflux has improved a lot.

6. Raise the moses basket or cot.
When my baby was only a few months old the reflux was at its worse and raising the cot with books helped to prevent the reflux from happening when she was put down. Raising the cot at the head end with books can really help babies with reflux to be more comfortable.

7. Identify the root cause.
Symptoms improved after I cut out dairy with my doctor’s approval. The decision to determine this came from my baby’s symptoms showing signs of a CMPA (cow’s milk protein allergy) dairy allergy.

8. Avoiding foods in my diet.
Closely monitoring a a baby’s reactions to foods I consume, has made all the difference. This made me realise that soya and eggs would cause reactions similar to those caused by dairy. I also noticed reactions and discomfort, after I was consuming oats daily. Upon looking into it I found that oats are harder to digest and are best when soaked overnight. Other foods that flare up reflux for my baby is anything acidic, such as tomatoes and citrus fruits and complex starches like apple and sweet potato. Complex starches are harder for an immature digestive system to break down

9. Try Massage

Massaging my baby with coconut oil after bath time helped to relax her , whilst stimulating the nerve that works with the digestive tract. Massage works best with a pillow under the baby’s head, elevated to a 45 degree angle. Massage using gentle clockwise strokes to best follow the way the digestive tract works.

10. Positivity

Finally, a big part of helping my baby with reflux has been down to positive distractions. I found I was so stressed and upset to see my baby suffer, which my baby would pick up on. It wasn’t until I thought of reflux as only being a temporary phase for my baby and not a definition that I focused fully on making the most of each moment with my baby . After all, babies are only small once, The more I would distract my baby with things she enjoys such as going outside, baths, looking in mirrors and singing songs that make her chuckle, the more I realised the reflux bothered me more than her.

Thanks for reading! I would love to hear what remedies you recommend. X