Feeding for a 7 Week Old

I would be willing ot wager she does NOT have reflux, but instead you have a forceful letdown and its making her gassy and upset. If your milk sprays out during letdown, you have a forceful letdown. This will make colic/reflux like symtoms in babies. Once you learn how to control it, the symptoms will go away.

Latch her on, and when your milk lets down, unlatch her and catch the spray in a towel, or a cup if you want to save it. WHen it slows or stops, relatch her. Only nurse her from one breast at each feeding, no switching.

I would not give rice cereal at this age. Her gut is still open and that will leach into her body. Try to blocking I described above, it will teach your body to slow the letdown and it will only take a couple weeks for it to slow on its own.

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Perhaps nursing in an upright position will help your baby with swallowing and not so much air like with gassy babies. Also, so perhaps changing your diet to "old lady" for awhile will help your milk in her tummy (no tomatoes/acidic foods, little spice or garlics, plain eating) and if you can shoot for over 1 gal of water a day. My first had horrible colic & gas until I tried these things.

If you can, try not to supplement with formula -- not only will your milk be easier to digest, but adding another digestion factor (formula or cereal) might tip the scales poorly.

Also, I saw a really cool new "toy" for reflux babies -- Nap Nanny at www.napnanny.com.

I would see a specialist for such a young infant to reevaluate -- meds might become a "crutch" to her development and feeding cereal too young might make more problems for her sensitive system. My daughter battled asthma/allergies until we finally saw a specialist that told me I was was not using her medicines properly -- but that was what the pediatrician ("expert") told me to do. Go figure:)

Good luck, you're smart to find solutions and congratulations:)

Well, some people may say that it is too early to fed the baby cereal because it can hurt the developing digestive system, while the other school of thought is that it helps them sleep better. You may not be able to fed them cereal since they do not have the right reflex to swallow the cereal off of the spoon. If you decide to do this add it to the formula. Make the hole in the nipple a little bigger for when you feed her cereal. Good luck and do what you think it right. I am not one to make judgements because you are the mom.

This is definitely something you should only do under a doctor's instructions and monitoring. I am of the opinion you should not feed any baby cereal this early, but haven't had to deal with reflux personally, so I can't say for sure. I think I would also see a ped gastroenterologist before I started using drugs and cereal, just to make 100% sure what it going on.

I would not do it unless specifically directed to do so by her doc.

Our pediatrician had us spoon feeding 1 tsp rice cereal for reflux starting at 3 months. She didn't have us do it earlier, even though my son had reflux earlier. Good luck!

Re: the feeding of cereal-it will not hurt. My family's babies all started cereal at early ages. My brothers and I had it while still in the hospital at birth and my children had it beginning at 6wks and my grandson at 3wks.

Check your diet for any spices and other things that you may be eating that may be causing the reflux. If it is violent reflux you may want to have your children checked by the doctor.

My youngest son had violent reflux from 2wks of age and by 3months was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. I've learned that many children are not diagnosed before 3yrs if they do not have siblings with prior diagnosis.

But, I would check my diet if I were you as it happened with your 2nd child as well.