I wish I could say that all has been fine and dandy; and
that whatever trick that Squirt’s gonna pull, we’ll be more prepared to handle the
situation better given that (we thought!) Spud has already thrown us more than enough
curveballs when she was an infant.
But! We forgot one thing – Spud never did have the reflux
(or colic).
Squirt, as I mentioned in my previous post, has been fussing
quite a bit in the last few days. The contented little baby we had, turned into
this bundle of fury that could not stop crying. The only time he wasn’t wailing
was when he was at my breasts.
Being the breast fed baby that he is, I fed him on demand. I
thought nothing of it as I was conditioned to think that feeding on demand is good
for my milk supply, and as a nursing mother, I was also often told that “it is
not possible to overfeed a breastfed baby.”
He was always ravenous, feeding with gusto every half an
hour and could never seem to feed enough. He was gaining weight and filling up his
diaper quite a bit. I mistook it for a
growth spurt and at one point, even thought that I probably was not producing
enough milk.
He continued fussing incessantly at the breasts. Every so
often, I noticed the piercing screams and grimace on his face after each
feeding session as if he was in such a terrible pain. Although he only
sometimes spat up, he had violent hiccups,
he was gagging and choking, he was arching his back whilst feeding and he
seemed to be in such intense pain whenever he needed to burp or when he was about
to do a poo. His sleeping, especially at night was lousy and he kept us awake
for several hours on end over several days. His nose sounded stuffed, he was coughing
quite a lot and every cough was again accompanied by a cry of pain.
It broke my heart. I wanted him to stop hurting, yet I felt
really helpless. He calmed down only when he was feeding. And he was feeding
excessively.
Turning to Mr. Google, I started to research and the results
pointed to the direction of Squirt potentially having a silent reflux.
As it stands, most babies are born with some degree of
reflux problem. With silent reflux, the acid comes up to the esophagus, but the
child will swallow it back down – which explains why Squirt was not spitting up
too much. Many times, the infant will
develop a food aversion and refuse to eat as he learns to associate pain with
feeding. Occasionally, as in the case of Squirt, the opposite happened – we have
an infant who comfort feeds, eating excessively as the milk coats the esophagus
allowing temporary relief, and perhaps, pushes the food back down. It’s a
vicious cycle.
So, off to the Pediatrician we went. Our PD seemed to agree
with our suspicion of Squirt having a reflux problem and prescribed us with Air-X.
She also told us to put Squirt on a strict feeding schedule – he is to be fed only
every 2 hours and very.strictly.not.less.
I have to admit that I was skeptical at the doctor’s order
and doubt that it will work on a breastfed baby. I thought putting Squirt on a schedule
seemed ridiculous for a breastfed baby. It would put the breastfeeding NAZI to
shame! It was a tall order.
It was not easy putting Squirt on a 2-hour schedule; it meant
that we have to endure the hours of crying. However, we saw some improvement
within the day we gave Squirt his meds and putting him on a 2 hour feeding schedule
as ordered. It took all that I had to not give in.
Who would have thought that the demand feeding we thought he
needed was exactly the very thing which caused him such suffering. It has been almost a week now since we put
Squirt on a routine schedule to remedy his reflux. I don’t know how long more
it will take before Squirt can minimize his crying while waiting to be fed as we work on his 2-hour feeding routine.
His crying is driving me insane, but I am glad that we caught this early enough.
And I guess, at this point in time, both Squirt and me (and the
rest of our household members), have a lot of getting used to.
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