My top secret reflux tip!
This is Otto, who I went to see last week. He was 4.5 months old, fed round the clock and didn’t sleep. After just 48 hours he was feeding just 4 times a day and sleeping through the night.
MY TOP REFLUX ‘SECRET’ TIP:
Most people will say that the best way to feed a reflux baby is ‘little and often’ and that this will also help manage/cure the reflux.
Sadly, neither of these declarations are actually true — in fact ignoring this advice and adopting the complete opposite, is in fact the best policy!
Babies with reflux will often try to feed little and often in response to their discomfort. They learn from a very early age that the more milk they take in one go the more it makes them reflux which hurts, so they become ‘snack-feeders’! But with proper management of the reflux issues it should be possible for them to stretch out to the natural feeding pattern.
Obviously in the early weeks you would expect a newborn to feed two to three hourly around the clock, but by around 8 to 12 weeks that should have changed to fall in line with the natural digestive pattern, which is based on a four-feed, four-hourly structure and a full 12 hour stretch of sleep at night without the need for nighttime feeds!
This pattern follows the natural feeding and sleeping requirements of any baby, but those with reflux are often unable to fall into this cycle as their demand for small and frequent feeds is driven by their digestive discomfort and reflux. Sadly however, continuing to snack-feed and having multiple milk feeds during the night only exacerbates the reflux issues as the digestive never gets a break and is unable to function as as it should.
The human digestive system is designed to be filled up and then it needs a clear gap to digest and empty the stomach contents before being refilled. This is true for babies too and once they are past the initial need to feed every 2 to 3 hours in the early weeks, they should easily fall into the natural digestive pattern of only feeding every four hours during the day with a 12 hour stretch at night.
A Norwegian study was carried on two adults who ate exactly the same for 3 meals in one day with one person snacking in between meals and the other not. Analysis of the stomach contents four hours after the last meal, showed that in the person who snacked there was still undigested food from breakfast but only food from the last meal was in found in the non-snacking person.
The problem for reflux babies is that feeding little and often actually creates more acid and digestive distress within the gut as the body is constantly trying to digest and working overtime without a break which just makes the condition so much worse. Granted it can be tricky to get a reflux baby to take full feeds less frequently, but if the reflux is properly managed through things like — an exclusion diet, the correct milk or formula, using milk thickeners and if necessary, anti-acid medicines, then it is always achievable and the four hourly, natural feeding pattern has a hugely positive impact on the babies reflux.
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