16 weeks and rice cereal for reflux?

one of my girls has bad reflux and weve been through the meds and now told to use rice cereal. isnt it early for this? they are only 9 weeks post due date.

 

We used it for our babies starting about 8 weeks. We added >1 tsp. per 1oz of milk. They were eating every 2.5-3 hours and not sleeping in very long blocks at night, so the doctor recommended thickened formulas. They did start sleeping longer, but we believe the cereal began upsetting our bigger twin's stomach. Probably she was just getting too full b/c she has always been a good eater. They're now 12 weeks and this problem just started, so we dropped it.

It's a big trial and error process when used to address the problem of short intervals between bottles. However, I wouldn't hesitate to add some rice cereal to the milk to help hold it down if one or both of our babies had reflux.

 

We started using rice cereal for reflux at 6 weeks. We started at 1 tsp per ounce of formula and went up to 2tsp per ounce per the Ped GI. The 2 tsp was the magic number. It drastically reduced the amount of spit up after each bottle. Remember, to keep her elevated for at least 30 minutes after each feed and sleep her on an incline in the crib. You can put towels under the mattress or put books under the crib legs on one side.

What meds is she on? We started on Zantac, but it didnt work. We switched to Prevacid and within about 24 hours we had different babies. Has she been tested for a possible milk protein intolerance?

 

We started the cereal I think around 6 weeks, so no, it is not too early. I know some people say never put cereal in the bottle, but that combined with the meds, propping up the bed, etc. saved us. Oh, we also had to do Nutramigen formula because of dairy and soy intolerance.

 

If you don't want the added hassle of adding rice cereal to the bottles, you could try a formula thickened with rice starch that is designed to decrease spit up like Enfamil AR. Just a thought! Our girls had reflux as well and spit up quite a lot but the thickened formula was very helpful in that regard.

 

IF you are adding it to their bottles for reflux, then no it is not too early. My DS tried it that way when he was even younger. The recommendations of starting rice cereal at 4-6 months means actually feeding it to them. So I wouldn't worry if your doc told you to do this.