If you’ve been up at 3am asking yourself, ‘What can I do to help my baby’s acid reflux’ you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to tell you the exact things that I did and what YOU can do right now to help your baby with acid reflux. And the best part? No medication involved!
Having a baby with acid reflux was one of the most challenging things I had ever gone through with the sleepless, tear-filled nights and the hours spent scouring the internet and Facebook groups just trying to help my little guy (and me) feel better.
Just writing this makes me tear up thinking how far we’ve come, and that after 3 months and doing the 9 natural remedies below his acid reflux was 99% better and finally happy!
It WILL get better, trust me.
HOW TO HELP YOUR BABY WITH ACID REFLUX:
9 Natural Remedies that will help your baby with acid reflux
1 – SLOWER FLOW FOR FEEDINGS
I realize that it’s a little more difficult to slow the flow when breastfeeding, but if your little one is struggling to keep up with the feeding he may be taking in more than he can handle along with swallowing extra air while trying to keep up.
*If breastfeeding you may have a fast flow – try bottle feeding with a preemie nipple.
Being a new mom I didn’t realize there were different nipple sizes for bottles. We switched from using a size 1 nipple to a preemie nipple which helped him regulate his feedings and not take it all in so fast.
At about 2 and a half months he was ready to go up a nipple size. I knew he was ready because he would push the bottle away, continually fall asleep while eating and would be fussy while eating. We moved up to a size 1 nipple and at 3 and a half months moved up to size 2. At around 5 months we finally switched to a size 3 nipple.
*** These are our FAVORITE baby bottles that claim anti-colic, they have the best nipples and flow. Little man refuses the Dr. Brown’s bottles we had originally started on and will only have these MAM anti-colic ones.
2 -FEED LESS OUNCES MORE FREQUENTLY
This goes hand in hand with getting a slower flow nipple. Some cases of acid reflux in babies are simply a case of us parents trying to force them eat more than their stomachs can handle.
I want a chunky baby just the same as the next person. But it hurts a little inside (and in your wallet) when you see your baby spit up half the milk they just ate. Babies can’t tell you when they’re full, and some babies don’t give you any cues when they’re ready to stop eating – they just keep eating.
If your baby is continually spitting up after feedings try to feed a half ounce less each time but feed a half hour earlier. That way their stomachs can handle what they’re taking in but they are still eating the same amount in a given day.
3 – KEEPING BABY UPRIGHT AFTER FEEDING CORRECTLY
Everyone knows the tip of keeping your baby upright for 15 to 30 minutes after eating to help it all stay down. What I didn’t realize was there is a right and wrong way to keep them propped up.
After most feedings I’d put my little guy in a bouncer and within 2 minutes he’d have his outfit soaked. I didn’t understand what was going on, he was sitting up so why did he keep spitting up each time?
I realized that the bouncer was one of the things that was causing him to spit up because of the pressure it put on his stomach while he was sitting in it.
I started noticing a difference when I would hold him myself and when he was sitting in a bouncer. Every time I held him on my chest he didn’t spit anything up.
It was a little inconvenient to hold him for 30 minutes after every single feeding, but I was secretly enjoying all the snuggles (and watching all the Hulu!)
*** I obviously couldn’t hold him after EVERY SINGLE feeding, I did occasionally have to put him in a bouncer so I could get something to eat for myself (which still doesn’t happen often!) The BEST bouncer I found for acid reflux was this baby bouncer on Amazon that will help keep them more upright and less pressure on their stomachs.
4 – USING A PACIFIER AFTER FEEDINGS
My baby boy had silent reflux where he he’d just spit up after eating but then the rest of the day you could hear stuff coming up into his throat and him swallowing/gurgling it back down.
I knew he was miserable even though he didn’t act like he was in pain from it. We used his pacifier at nights but I decided to try it after he eats thinking that maybe the sucking of it would help the milk not come back into his throat.
After every feeding I stuck that pacifier in his mouth and burped him with it still in. He seemed a lot more comfortable not having that nasty acidic milk in his throat all day.
*** We had a hard time finding a pacifier that stayed in little man’s mouth. These BIB pacifiers that we found worked wonders, are BPA free and go all the way up to 6 months.
5 – THICKENING FEEDS
One of the first things our pediatrician recommended with helping the acid reflux in our baby was choosing a thicker formula to help him keep it down. We immediately started the Enfamil AR formula and couldn’t believe the difference it made!
Unfortunately, little man also had a milk allergy and we had to switch formulas to a hypoallergenic one. We tried to figure out the best alternative to thicken his milk, but I didn’t want to put in any oatmeal or rice to thicken his formula with my baby boy still being so young.
Instead, we started using Gelmix and could not be more thankful that we found it! (And we still use it every single day.)
Gelmix is an organic thickener that you can put in breastmilk or formula and is hypoallergenic (so safe for your babies!)
I found the Gelmix on Amazon and have always ordered it from there, you do have to heat the milk to 100 degrees before mixing it in but it is so worth the small amount of extra time it takes to make the bottle.
6 – NAPPING ON THEIR STOMACHS
(Please always supervise your baby if they are sleeping on their stomach unless they are able to roll onto their stomach and back. And remember to always approve it with your pediatrician beforehand.)
Just like any new mom I tried my best to add in tummy time each day. I kept getting frustrated because he would ALWAYS fall asleep while doing tummy time!
I finally realized that he was probably most comfortable sleeping on his stomach because he never spit up and his acid reflux was significantly better.
I tested it out by starting with naps. I’m definitely the person who panics and checks on my baby 557 times a night to make sure he’s breathing so I was terrified to even have him nap on his stomach. I made sure to keep the Owlet sock on and he was next to me the entire nap for the first week.
He slept amazing at nights since he didn’t constantly have stuff coming back up and it helped me finally get some more sleep! Happy mama = happy baby (or really the other way around!!)
*** The Owlet sock is one of THE BEST purchases that we have made and one that I would make 100X over. Having a baby with acid reflux is hard enough, I was constantly worried of him choking in his sleep. Having the Owlet sock was the ONLY way I could get sound sleep.
P.S. The Owlet camera is NOT worth it. It constantly glitches and isn’t very good quality. We ended up getting a better quality camera on Amazon that was much cheaper.
7 – FINDING THE RIGHT FORMULA / POSSIBLE ALLERGIES
After joining a very helpful Facebook group of other moms whose babies had acid reflux I realized a lot mentioned that their babies had a milk allergy.
I started doing some recon on Google (because what else do you do at 3am when you’re holding your baby) and found out that it is actually very common for babies to be allergic to milk since it can be so hard for them to digest.
*If breastfeeding or pumping and you suspect an allergy, start cutting things out of your diet for 2 full weeks (it takes that long for it to full be out of babies system). The main culprits are dairy, eggs and wheat. Because this still wasn’t working even after giving all that up we decided to switch to formula.
Not only are there milk allergies but soy, corn etc.. We switched from the Enfamil AR to Alimentum Ready to Feed (we tried the Alimentum powder and it did not work! It has to be the ready to feed).
For the first few days there wasn’t much of a difference, maybe a little less fussing, but I was determined to try for 2 weeks. That’s how long it takes for the previous milk/formula to get out of their system and for the current one to actually have affect.
The difference we saw after 2 weeks made me cry tears of joy. We are still using Alimentum Ready to Feed at 5 months in and I am so glad that we continued until we found a formula that worked for him.
*** It takes at least 2 weeks to see a difference when testing a possible milk/formula allergy. The Alimentum Ready to Feed worked amazing for little man we order the Alimentum formula on Amazon and you can even get 15% off if you do the subscribe and save (win, win cause that stuff is EXPENSIVE!)
8 – CHECK FOR A TONGUE TIE
Working at a dental office I knew what tongue ties were but didn’t realize how much they affected babies.
In certain cases, babies with a tongue tie swallow more air when feeding. Because of this it results in extra gas in their tummies and milk being pushed up (queue reflux).
Getting their tongue tie cut as a baby can be very beneficial for reducing reflux or gas, and it’s often easier than doing it when they are older. I know it sounds traumatizing but I promise that they won’t remember it the younger they are.
9 – GOING TO A CHIROPRACTOR
Chiropractors are only for adults, right?! Wrong!
I would have never considered taking my newborn baby to a chiropractor until somebody recommended it in the Facebook group for helping babies with acid reflux. There were quite a few moms who swore by it and listen, I was DESPERATE to try anything!
The chiropractor knew right away what side he favored based on the tight muscles in his neck and back. I did have to go 3 times in a week for the first couple of weeks but I noticed a significant improvement in his fussiness (he was able to pass gas easier) and his sleeping.
Did the chiropractor get rid of his reflux? I don’t know … I DO know that it made him more comfortable and gave him better head control since he didn’t have a kinked neck anymore. That MAY have related to resolving his baby reflux but I can’t say for sure. It certainly didn’t make it worse!
A WORD FOR THE DESPERATE MAMMAS
I’VE BEEN THERE. I KNOW HOW YOU ARE FEELING. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. The long tear-filled nights, frustrating days and hopelessly searching for THE right answer was my life. And it is hard.
There wasn’t any 1 specific thing that we did from this list above that I can say for certain completely 100% helped my baby get rid of his acid reflux. However, I DO know that a combination of all of the above helped get rid of it.
Most people immediately pointed me towards medicating him and I just knew in my mamma heart that I had to do everything possible to try to help him before pumping my sweet little 6 pound baby with medication. If it came down to it, I was willing to medicate especially if he was in pain or it would cause long term damage.
I’m so happy that I listened to my mamma instincts and was able to help get rid of the acid reflux in my baby using natural remedies. He is now a happy, growing and thriving baby. And we are much less sleep deprived parents because of it!
QUICK TIPS FOR HELPING DEAL WITH BABY ACID REFLUX:
– There is a ‘peak’ or comeback of reflux at around month 4. It wasn’t anything near as bad as it was. We went back to doing those 9 things above and within a couple of weeks it resolved itself
– Choosing the right bottle can make a difference if you are bottle-feeding. These Mam bottles for colic are our absolute favorite and were 100X better than the Dr. Brown’s bottles we used. Little man wouldn’t go back to the Dr. Brown’s bottles after using the Mam’s.
– Keep your baby in a bib at all times when awake (just don’t let them sleep with a bib on). This saved me from 27 outfit changes a day. I found these baby bibs on Amazon to be the most absorbent and match all his outfits. (Plus they are cheap!)
– You NEED good burb rags, and a lot of them. These baby burb rags were amazing at not seeping through and large enough to protect yourself and clean up baby.
– Most babies will grow out of reflux naturally after 5 to 6 months. (I know, sounds forever away). If after doing these 9 things above it is still not helping, know that there is an end in sight. In some cases you may need to visit a GERD specialist to find out if there are additional problems causing the reflux.
Is there anything that has helped your baby get rid of their acid reflux that wasn’t on the list above? Comment and share it below to help other desperate mammas!
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