....or am I medicating him unnecessarily?? I have a six week old son who has been unsettled basically from day 1. Everyone kept telling me that babies cry and that some babies don't sleep so I lived through hell for the first few weeks. After some research on the internet, I "self" diagnosed silent reflux. My son does not vomit, but does spill occasionally. Would get upset when getting burped (though that seems to have improved now that he burps better???). Would HARDLY sleep during the day, waking after 10 or 20 minutes, sometimes half an hour.

Originally I tried gaviscon only to find it clogged him up and didn't seem to help. I am now on 2ml a day of losec and this is day four.

He appears to have improved over the last week or two, now sleeping during the day, but I am starting to doubt myself (in fact I doubt myself ALL the time!) as to whether he had/has reflux or whether he has improved because I can read him better now and am putting him to bed at the right time??? Or that he has "grown up" a bit so not as grizzly???

He used to sleep really well at night, falling asleep on the boob and not waking for anything. Since he has been on losec, he has started having difficulty going back to sleep at the 3/4am feed, sometimes waking 1/2 an hour later crying. This morning he was hard to get down at 4am, but eventually slept 1 1/2 hours, only to be difficult at the next feed, and only sleep for 3/4 of an hour. Is this normal? Anyone else had this???

Any advice, opinions, help, thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I sometimes feel like a total failure as a mum as I still have NO idea what I am doing, what is right for him, and whether he is okay.

I can totally understand that feeling of doubting yourself. you are probably bang on about the silent reflux but I guess if you really want to prove it to yourself then the only thing you could do would be to drop the meds and see what happens...

Don't be so hard on yourself...remember that your GP wouldn't have perscibed the Losec if he didn't agree with you about the symptoms. But I agree - if you are unsure, drop the medication and see what happens. Having said that though, I think it can take up to a couple of weeks for the medication to really kick in and start working properly.

Gaviscon on its own never worked for us...once we got his losec dose sorted, if we had a bad day, gaviscon would help, but before starting on the losec I never thought gaviscon was any help to my son.

As for sleeping, my son was never a good sleeper at night with his reflux. It may help to hold him upright for a good 20 minutes after his feed at 3am - it used to help us. I think it may depend also on what time of day you are giving the Losec...I'm not really an expert on that although I do remember my GP asking me when his worst time was and suggesting I give the dose just before that.

Hope this helps. I'm sure there are more people on here that can give you better advice, but I wanted you to know that you are not a failure and not on your own. Having a baby with reflux is hard work. My reflux baby was my third child and I still question myself every day about what is right/wrong when it comes to reflux!

Also, maybe look at switching to the granules rather than the suspension if things don't settle down. It is probably easier giving than granules (we give in small bit of baby pear) than the suspension.

I found things really started to pick up end of first week this time around. With DD1 it took more like a month but we didn't start medicating her till much later so she would have been in a worse condition when starting the losec.

You might also find that he is harder to resettle at night now that he is getting more sleep during the day. I;m sure total exhaustion from lack of sleep during the day makes them often easier at night...

Like Hayley said, don't be hard on yourself, but I can totally understand those feelings you are having. Had a simlar conversation with my DH only yesterday and he looked at me like I was nuts

We know what your going through and I think it's great that you didn't just sit back and do nothing about it when you knew something wasn't right.

When starting meds for reflux it can take some time to see some effect, this is because the burn has to heal first before you can see an improvement. The meds do what they are meant to pretty quickly but as they will never stop the milk coming back up the burn takes a while to heal with that happening.

The docs always start with the smallest amount of meds so if there is no improvement after a little while it might not be enough.

Good luck and if you think something is not right then keep going back to the GP sometimes it can take some time until you get what is right for your little one.

Please dont doubt yourself you are so doing the right thing, i was the same with no 1 and we went though hell with her, took me a long time to want anymore lol, anyho we are on no 3 and shes the worst yet but i have no doubts anymore its more of a gut instinct as well, so go with your gut you as a mum know if your baby is in pain, good luck and hugs.

The thing is with reflux is you can have good days and then really bad days so it makes you doubt if it really is reflux. From what you described it sounds like silent reflux to me. Have you been on the crying overspilt milk website? Its great and has loads of info on reflux and the meds for it. My dd who is now 19mnths is still on losec for her reflux and has been since she was three weeks old. She was the same...would not settle at all during th day and would sleep maybe 20mins before waking up and screaming all day long. The nighs were the same and were worse after feeds. Did you know that 1/3 of reflux babies have milk allergy or inollerance which adds to the reflux. If after a while being on losec and there is little difference then I would try a dairy free diet to see if this helps. After three weeks of my daughter being on the losec granuels with no improvement we tried a dairy free diet and then going on to a hypoallergenic formula called neocate .... that was when we had our first two hour block of uninterupted sleep and she was alot better. Anyway you are doing a great job and can understand exactly how you are feeling. Good luck and hugs