Infant Reflux Medication Options and The Weight Put on Parents

If you’ve landed here looking for advice on the best medicines for your baby’s reflux, I’m sorry, you won’t find much here. There are daily posts on this topic on the Baby Center forum Surviving Reflux: Dealing with Colic, Reflux, MSPI  and I suggest you check it out.

The reason for the lack of info? Simply, I have no experience. The medication route was never advised by multiple docs, nor pushed by myself. I had a fat and “happy” spitter, which meant a “laundry problem” for me. Oh, and 18 months of no sleep and constant anxiety. 

If hindsight is 20/20, then my foresight was 50/50. I felt I had two clear choices:

1. Demand medication and find a doctor that would agree, or..
2. Go with my doctor’s recommendation, which was also my gut at the time.
   
   

The way I see it, at just a week or two old, I took my fork in the road too strong, and too early, without giving myself the options for detours along the way. All while under the obvious clear-headedness that comes after just giving birth and tackling home life with a newborn and two year old. 

He smiled, he laughed, he cried, he met milestones. He did what typical babies do, he just spit up each meal and couldn’t get rest (via nap or overnight). Still, I stuck to my guns, and my gut, that both he, and I, could make it through with this choice. 

As advised, my son needed to simply mature, eventually become more vertical each day, and he did outgrow it. Yes, he did spit up solids during this time, but the more solid the meal, the less the reflux persisted. Other than horrible sleep habits that were never quite worked out, I feel today that we did take the right path. But I can’t help but wonder if trying a solution would’ve made those 18 months better, more peaceful and more restful. Heck, I tried everything else.

There’s a reason that Medicate or Wait is part of my top 10 considerations for reflux families. Every parent comes into this situation with a position, that becomes influenced by experience and guided by medical professionals. 

Of parents I’ve talked to, no one situation has been alike. Some were prescribed medication right off the bat and solved many issues, and others tried many kinds with no luck at all. Some refused the recommended medicine, and others yet, like myself, found alternative tricks and tools to cope. 

My advice is to seriously re-examine your gut instincts with each passing phase. It’s to remind you that you are the voice for your child, even when that voice is a scared and shaky one (at whatever direction you take, or when you decide to change directions). 

Take a solid stance and press the issue until you can both find a new comfort level. And don’t be so stubborn, or sleep-deprived, to reconsider your options when your situation changes. 

If medication is on your mind, your first step is your doc, or a different doc, or yet a different doc. As far as online resources, there are tons of polarizing articles out there on both sides of the coin, and I never recommend trusting strangers on the Internet. If nothing else, you will see how not alone you are.