Cereal in bottle

I'm pretty sure my 9 week old has a minor case of reflux... I plan to talk to the ped tomorrow at his well visit about it & I planned on asking her about cereal in the bottle bc I've heard this does wonders for reflux

I know some say its a big no no, but others have said its a life saver. Thoughts? Not sure why they say it's bad, but would love to hear from moms who have done it & had a good experience!

TIA!

Message edited 5/8/2014 11:13:46 AM.

Re: Cereal in bottle

I only did it when our pedi gi told us too.. It didn't really help with his reflux. It is a choking hazard and it isn't to be used with every bottle... I did it at 3 months and stopped after a month. He was allergic to the cereal we used. :/
It doesn't make them sleep better. It sometimes helps if your baby spits up a lot...

Cereal in bottle

There is formula that is meant for reflux if you are FF. It is thicker.

Re: Cereal in bottle

Just wanted to say that I'd see a pediatric GI before doing anything, not just your regular ped.

Re: Cereal in bottle

I did it for both of my girls, due to their reflux, on the advice of the ped gi doc. With DD#1 we only added a little bit, but for DD#2, we added A LOT! And honestly, I think it was really to add calories to help her gain weight, cause it didn't really help much with her reflux, but she did start gaining an acceptable amount of weight. And you don't really want to do it to the point where it does become a choking hazard...it is really just to thicken the formula. And if you're going to use the AR formula, the one that is thicker...for reflux, just know that it gets very foamy when you mix it, so I'd suggest making a pitcher at night, and added a dropper or two full of simethicone to help get rid of all the bubbles. There is no way I could make a bottle on demand, as it just produced way too much foam and bubbles.

Re: Cereal in bottle

We tried it, at the recommendation of DS's ped GI. It didn't really help him much, so we gave him Zantac, which helped.

What it does is thicken the formula, especially b/c DS was on Nutramigen which is slightly thinner to begin with. I know some people say it's a choking hazard, but it really isn't. If you add the right proportion, once it's mixed in you wouldn't even know it's in the formula. It literally just thickens the liquid a bit.

Cereal in bottle

My ped suggested it but we didn't do it. Turns out DS didn't have reflux at all.

Re: Cereal in bottle

we did this at 3 months..did it help, yes..was it a "life saver" no. only time helped for me

Cereal in bottle

I just took my almost 2 month old for a sick visit yesterday. We just started Zantac. I really hope it works.

Cereal in bottle

We did it for almost 8 months on recommendation of pedi to help the formula stay down. He was on alimentum which tended to be a little thinner.

Didn't make him sleep any better but the spitting up got better. He also took Zantac.

Cereal in bottle

I would talk to your reg peds before doing it. Everyone has their own personal feelings about it and if it helps a child feel better than by all means do it. BUT its something to be careful with. I know a lot of people who did this with their babies and they babies gained a ton of weight that wasn't healthy for them.
I tried it for my dd but it did not help her it made it worse,. She would throw up from it. We were prescribed Zantac and she ended up on Alimentum because she had digestion issues as well and this was the life saver for us.
I went through many meds and many different formulas and tricks before finding what worked for us.
Its a bit of trial and error, but I was happy the cereal in the bottle didn't work for us.

Also try:
Sleeping on an angle like in a rock n play.
Held her upright for 20 min after each bottle before putting her down (in rock n play)
Burped her every 2 oz

And eventually she grew out of it thankfully. by 6 months.

Cereal in bottle

Most babies have reflux. They have a weak muscle that prevents the "flap" from closing entirely, so then you have reflux. So rice really doesn't do anything to help with that.

Re: Cereal in bottle

Thanks everyone. My ped started him on axid so we will see how this works!!

Re: Cereal in bottle

The cereal in the bottle was too much for dd so we started her on a thicker formula that had rice starch in it, enfamil AR. We also have her on Zantac and she has done well with the combination.