Part one:Help My Baby Has Bad Acid Reflux! Part Two: What Kind of Humidifer?

My son was put on Zantac and the Enfamil AR (Rice base) formula, and it helped him tremendously with acid reflux. He's now 10 mos and doesn't need the meds, but we kept him on the formula, and he's doing great. We did start putting a wedge under his mattress, so that it elavated him a lil at night, and helped relieve the discomfort for him. He no longer needs the wedge, either. Hope this helps and good luck!

Regarding what kind of humidifier - do NOT buy a warm mist one for your baby. At 8 months old my son got a very bad burn from the warm mist one in his nursery - we spent several weeks visiting the burn unit at Children's Mercy. While the nurses there are awesome, it isn't somewhere I want to go back to. When they asked how it happened, all of the nurses shook their heads and said they wished the warm mist ones would be banned - they see a lot of kids in there with burns from them!

I am not sure what to advise on the acid reflux but I can recommend a humdifier for her room.
I am a Young Living Essential Oil Distributor, and I love the YL Ultrasonic Diffuser. It atmoizes cold water and if you chose, essential oils, to help humdify the air. Elimates the need for fragrant candles, which can actually irritate more then help.
If you would like more information on it I would be happy to send via email. (This method won't let me attach a picture or anything) or you can visit www.youngliving.us and look up product 4456 Ultrasonic Diffuser for more info.
Good luck, sounds like an incredible challenge you have on your hands.

My baby also has laryngomalacia. My son has not had the gastric reflux that normally accompanies that condition, although he had other congenital defects. My friend's baby had the tracheolaryngomalacia, and the bad reflux. They kept him sleeping in his carseat for the first year. She said that helped a lot. It seems to me, that at the age that your baby is, the malacia should be outgrown. It usually clears up by 6-9 mos even with the tracheomalacia combination, and barring no other defects that may complicate it. If she is still having the reflux, it has nothing to do with the LM, I suspect.

Does she still have the laryngo snore? Does she still have the noisy breathing? That would be the biggest indication if that is still there. There are other causes to reflux, and I would suggest going to the GI dr because of its severity at this age. Some of this should be outgrown, and if it hasn't improved any since birth, I would certainly have her checked out. Has she had any pneumonia since birth and how many times? Is it just the crabbiness that concerns you? I wasn't real clear about exactly what symptoms were concerning you, just that the meds don't seem to be helping much, and that can indicate that maybe there is something else going on that needs to be addressed. Your baby is nearly one, and she is past the point that should be so severe. I would insist she gets in to the GI ASAP, and let them know how the MEDS AREN'T WORKING, how much she cries, had pneumonia how many times, blue spells, noisy breathing, etc. Whatever it is that has you worried. It is hard to see your child just suffer, and there is no need with modern medicine.

We've had to go down a difficult road with worry over our baby, with symptoms that normally have people very alarmed, and the specialists have assured us that he is okay (well, they've tried, but we will naturally worry until he outgrows this). These things are part of his condition, and we can just relax and treat illnesses as they come. You need to be your child's advocate. And, it seems that sometimes the drs just see so many really sick babies, that they are desensitized to those who just are sick in episodes. So, it is our jobs as Mom to get them the attention they need.

Email me anytime if you need to talk to someone that has dealt with these kinds of specialists, and BTDT. Kymberli

Have you seen your pediatrician about this situation with your daughter?? I don't understand why they would say to wait until she is a year old...she is miserable now. I know there are medications that are specifically made for acid reflux in babies....and they may be much more effective than the over the counter things you have been trying. In fact, I dont know that those over the counter things are intended for young children.
I hope you have returned the vicks humidifiers...they should not be leaking!!! Use the money that you got back from those...and go to Sears...and get one of their humidifiers...I have had one for years and it cleans up easily and works very well.
Good luck with your little one's tender tummy!!

This probably isn't the problem, but is the first thing I think of when someone says they are having big acid reflux problems. I have b/g twins that were almost 3 months early and we had AWFUL problems with reflux when they first came home from NICU. They were on Previcid, but the nurses failed to tell me it has to be given 15-20 minutes before they eat in order to work. I was completely unable to sleep well for fear my little ones would reflux and choke to death at night because they were refluxing and choking so badly...they would turn blue and purple, it was awful. Anyway, once I started giving it almost 20 minutes before they ate, it was like night and day difference. I don't mean to oversimplify and I can't imagine this is the problem. But it's such an easy fix and makes such a difference, I thought I'd share. I hope and pray things are better soon.

Hi S.,

My daughter also had reflux, and no medicines helped her either...the only thing that helped was for me to give up dairy (I was still nursing), even though 3 docs said it wouldn't help. Also, she saw a GI doc from the time she was 3 months old, since she was on such high doses of meds. If you are in St. Louis I would highly recommend Dr. Foy at Cardinal Glennon, but it will take months to get in, so you could go ahead and make an appointment...you can always cancel it later.
As far as the humidifier, we got one of those cute animal ones (ultrasonic vaporizer I think) from Target when she was an infant, not realizing that unless you use distilled water, it would spew fine white dust everywhere...we saw it accumulating on our tv's etc, and it explained why her boogers were always white. We stopped using it, worrying about what it was doing to her lungs etc. The dust is from the minerals in the water being vaporized. Now we have one of the cheap ones that have a filter that holds the water and a fan that blows...I don't think it makes the air nearly as moist, but since it's not vaporizing, white dust isn't a concern, and the company said that as long as you run the fan whenever it's wet and don't let it sit with water that mold etc wouldn't be a problem. We aren't entirely satisfied, but we didn't want a warm mist because of the burn danger and we didn't want to spend a ton of money. Good luck. C.

Hi S.,

My daughter was a preemie and had terrible acid reflux. She has since grown out of the reflux-- I have to say for her, the solid food really helped. But when she had acid reflux in the NICU at St. John's, the nurses gave her liquid Mylanta. Check with your pediatrician about it before trying it, but it worked for us. We still give it to her when she needs it ( she is two and a half now.)

And my daughter saw a GI doctor at St. John's when she was 2 months old. They did a 24 hr test that measured the amount of acid coming up into her throat (doesn't hurt the child at all) and then they knew exactly what level of medication she needed. Your daughter can see a pediatric GI doc now. I would not wait to take her-- they could have the answer you need.

Also, have you tried elevating her head with a wedge when she sleeps? Often we found the reflux worse at night. We had her sleep on a wedge that was made just for babies with reflux. It helped in general with her reflux. Ask your pediatrician if they think a wedge might help. If your daughter moves a lot in her sleep it may not help though.

I would go with a cold humidifier and use distilled water. Dump out the water often and refill, don't leave the water in it and you won't get the bacteria and mold.

Best of luck to you, I understand some of what you are going through. Hang in there.

S., We found that using a boopy pillow helped with my grandsons reFlux and Made a lot of difference to him He will be turning 2 in just a few days and he grew out of it once he was up on his feet more. I have 2 boopy pillows you can have if you know and are close to the independence area. If you do need a chiro for him I recomend DR Zac(He is certified in pedi Chiropractic) in Lee's Summit he is great with both my grandbabys. Noah has scoleosis Dr Zac has him walking and running with no pain,it was like turning on the sun for him. Before he could bearly walk the pain was so bad. Contact me if you want the pillows. AS for the humifiers a cold mist is best and get a product called bacterio-Static works really well to cut down on bacteris and yucky growth in the water. M.

I know you mentioned you took her to a chiropractor. My chiropractor told me a story about a one week old baby who had severe acid reflux and they were going to do surgery in a few days. The parents took the baby to a chiro and after a few times, she was perfectly back to normal with no reflux. Do you think that maybe she needs to be adjusted more often or more times before it would work? I know with chiropractors you don't usually see results right away, and it takes a lot of adjustments to work. I don't know, I guess if the problem was misalignment then it may have worked. Since it's not working, maybe that means it's not where the problem lies. I just thought I would suggest doing it a few more times or more often, but see what the chiro thinks (unless you think he/she is the kind of person who would tell you to keep taking her just so they can get paid. Mine is great and wouldn't do that, but I know some would. Just make sure you get an honest answer).

If you don't think that is the best route and if meds aren't working, have you looked into a naturopathic doctor? It couldn't hurt.

anyway, sorry I don't have any definite answers for you, just suggestions.

Best wishes!