How about "night terrors"? Kid looks at you, screaming, eyes open, otherwise completely unresponsive. "Growing pains?" I know, they don't exist (as such). But our daughter would wake up screaming with terrible pain in her legs. We tried everything to soothe her. She turns 27 next week, and claims to remember the pain, which continued until she was 3 or 4. Crying? It wasn't always practical to put her in the car and drive around aimlessly. I'd put her in the sling, and walk laps around the block. I had a patient from Barbados who swore that "Gripe water" was the answer. Scarier still was that one day while walking around our block with L in the sling, the helpful Armenian family sitting out on the stoop told me that a surefire cure was to soak a large cotton ball in alcohol and set it aflame on top of my daughter's abdomen.
Yes night terrors are a great example of the weird things children do! There are many more than I could squeeze into this post so maybe I will have to do a series...
I wish I had read this before we had our first! Our daughter used to vomit 10-20 times a day from about 6 weeks to 9 months of age. It was not effortless, it was not painless, it was large volumes of what looked like curdled milk. Her doctors ruled out stenosis of the esophagus and so decided it was “just reflux”. We treated her with increasing doses of Pepcid for 9 months, before we finally discovered she had a milk protein allergy. Once we cut out milk from her diet (and mine due to breastfeeding), she stopped vomiting completely. We still feel so, so bad that she spent months and months taking a medication that not only didn’t help, but may actually cause harm.
So sorry, this must have been so difficult for you all. Differentiating reflux from vomiting is certainly an important part of the history to ensure you don't miss diagnoses such as CMPA.
I wish I read this substack prior to 2009 when I took my " colicky" baby to the walk-in centre when she wouldn't stop crying. We were prescribed baby Gaviscon for weeks. My now 14 year old has pollen-food syndrome or oral allergy syndrome. I'm now connecting the dots. Very interesting article, and this is important information for all new parents in my opinion.
I'm pleased you found it useful! If it is any reassurance, infant gaviscon does not have anti-acid properties, and is simply a milk thickener. Medications like Ranitidine or Omeprazole suppress stomach acid, so are associated with later life allergic disease. To my knowledge, infant gaviscon has not been associated with allergic disease, so hopefully in this case the two are unrelated.
Interestingly (to me anyway), infant Gaviscon apparently has the same active ingredient (sodium alginate) as Gaviscon Advance, which is the only thing that seems to relieve my symptoms of pharyngolaryngeal reflux. Both seem to be available on Amazon, although to the best of my knowledge Gaviscon Advance isn't distributed in the U.S.--comes in through the UK.
How about "night terrors"? Kid looks at you, screaming, eyes open, otherwise completely unresponsive. "Growing pains?" I know, they don't exist (as such). But our daughter would wake up screaming with terrible pain in her legs. We tried everything to soothe her. She turns 27 next week, and claims to remember the pain, which continued until she was 3 or 4. Crying? It wasn't always practical to put her in the car and drive around aimlessly. I'd put her in the sling, and walk laps around the block. I had a patient from Barbados who swore that "Gripe water" was the answer. Scarier still was that one day while walking around our block with L in the sling, the helpful Armenian family sitting out on the stoop told me that a surefire cure was to soak a large cotton ball in alcohol and set it aflame on top of my daughter's abdomen.
I didn't try either cure.
Yes night terrors are a great example of the weird things children do! There are many more than I could squeeze into this post so maybe I will have to do a series...
I wish I had read this before we had our first! Our daughter used to vomit 10-20 times a day from about 6 weeks to 9 months of age. It was not effortless, it was not painless, it was large volumes of what looked like curdled milk. Her doctors ruled out stenosis of the esophagus and so decided it was “just reflux”. We treated her with increasing doses of Pepcid for 9 months, before we finally discovered she had a milk protein allergy. Once we cut out milk from her diet (and mine due to breastfeeding), she stopped vomiting completely. We still feel so, so bad that she spent months and months taking a medication that not only didn’t help, but may actually cause harm.
So sorry, this must have been so difficult for you all. Differentiating reflux from vomiting is certainly an important part of the history to ensure you don't miss diagnoses such as CMPA.
I wish I read this substack prior to 2009 when I took my " colicky" baby to the walk-in centre when she wouldn't stop crying. We were prescribed baby Gaviscon for weeks. My now 14 year old has pollen-food syndrome or oral allergy syndrome. I'm now connecting the dots. Very interesting article, and this is important information for all new parents in my opinion.
I'm pleased you found it useful! If it is any reassurance, infant gaviscon does not have anti-acid properties, and is simply a milk thickener. Medications like Ranitidine or Omeprazole suppress stomach acid, so are associated with later life allergic disease. To my knowledge, infant gaviscon has not been associated with allergic disease, so hopefully in this case the two are unrelated.
Interestingly (to me anyway), infant Gaviscon apparently has the same active ingredient (sodium alginate) as Gaviscon Advance, which is the only thing that seems to relieve my symptoms of pharyngolaryngeal reflux. Both seem to be available on Amazon, although to the best of my knowledge Gaviscon Advance isn't distributed in the U.S.--comes in through the UK.
My newborn does not cry at all while breastfeeding and everything else is fine. Is it normal not to cry?