We have been having problems with my 7 month old son throwing up real bad and I took him to the doctor on Friday and they determined that he was still having issues with his acid reflux and they also wanted to switch his formula to see if maybe he is having a reaction to milk proteins. They put him on Enfamil Nutramigen and that stuff is horrible! It smells really bad and tastes even worse, my son refused several times to drink it even when he was hungry, personally I don't blame him. Well my husband and I thought we would give soy a shot..we tried soy one time before and he got sick but we thought maybe he was getting a bug because he was running fever at the time etc..needless to say we figured out it wasn't a bug last time he is extremely allergic to soy. We gave him a 2 ounce bottle yesterday evening and another 2 ounce bottle an hour after that, within a few hours he was throwing up bad, dry heaving and throwing up stomach bile, very lathergic and pale. It was so scary and he is still trying to recover from it today. I'm trying to figure out what to do now? He won't drink the hypoallergenic formula, he can't have soy and most milk based formulas have some kind of soy ingredient in them. Have any of you other moms experienced this before? Has any of your babies had a reaction to soy like this and if so what did you do about it? Thanks for all the help =)
Aiden is doing much better now! We decided to put him back on his Nestle Goodstart and we started giving him his acid reflux medicine again and it seems to be working. Thank you all for the advice and support!
we had a similar problem...try Similac Sensitive, Or Similac Sensitive Rs (liquid)..worked for us and others i know.
Even if your son is allergic to soy, he should be able to drink the Nutramigen. The proteins are washed of the elements that cause allergic reactions. Both of my boys ended up on it because they couldn't tolerate even partially-washed protein formulas. We found the premix 64oz cans worked best for us. You can buy them by the case at Babies R Us, which saves some money and the boys liked it better as a premix. Unlike other formula, it's no cheaper to buy Nutramigen in powder.
A good friend had the same issues with her child's formula back in January, including her child's reaction to it. For about 2 weeks, she mixed half of the old formula and half of the new until her daughter was more used to it. She still had some stomach issues during these two weeks, but it helped her daughter acclimate because she was initially refusing the new formula.
My baby was throwing up gushers of formula & The only formula he held down was Enfamil AR, it has added rice starch to the formula & its thicker than a normal formula,easier to digest & much less spit up afer we got him on that. Good luck! Here's enfamil's link to info on this.
http://www.enfamil.com/app/iwp/enfamil/productDetail.do?d...
Hi R..
My preemie had reflux really bad as well. Our Neonatologist put her on Neocate which seemed to help a bit until we could get her into a gastro. doc. Neocate is expensive though...about $35 a can so the cost can add up quickly if your little one takes alot of ounces each feeding. Also, you can only purchase it in "bulk" which is 4 cans a case and it is not available at any retail stores so you either have to order it directly from the manufacturer which is in England I believe or go to your local drug store and they can order it for you. Now in our case, after seeing the gastro. doc he had us transition her to Carnation Good Start with Cultures (green can) which is about $20 for the larger can, and he put her on acid reflux meds and within a couple of weeks the refluxing had stopped. If you would like I can send you the name of our gastro.? He's in the Med Center at the UT clinic and he is fabulous. I hope this info comes in handy.
Hi R.,
If none of the forumula's work, and you're interested in trying breastmilk, you may want to take a look at this website: http://milkshare.birthingforlife.com/
It is a site where mother's with excess supply donate their milk to mom's in need. I believe there is only a $15 donation for signing up, and you pay the shipping cost to have the milk shipped to you. When my baby was younger, I had too much milk, so I had looked into this program.
You can also contact the milk bank here in Austin, but you would have to purchase that milk.
http://www.mmbaustin.org/scripts/
I'm not sure what the cost is relative to the formula, but I know some of the hypo-allergenic ones are quite expensive.
Good luck and hang in there...soon he'll be able to transition to cow's milk.
-RF
Hi R.! Yes, we've tried Nutramigen starting when our baby was about 2 months old. She was (and continues still) to get mostly breast milk but we were supplementing with formula (Enfamil Lipil) when she suddenly developed a milk protein allergy to the formula. We were advised to try Nutramigen, which she drank readily enough. Yes it stinks and yes it stains clothing, but I think she was little enough to take it without any problems. I should add that it helped with the allergy for a while but then she continued having GI problems so the pedi GI specialist advised to switch to Similac Alimentum (very similar to Nutramigen) to supplement the bm and that seemed to work. She's now almost six months and continues with a little Alimentum, lots of bm, and is starting cereals. The Alimentum is also pretty strong smelling but you might consider giving it a try if your doc says it's okay. As for the soy, I was told to cut it (along with dairy) out of my diet to make sure it didn't get to the bm and continue giving her GI problems -- there was a chance that she'd have the same allergic reaction (bloody stools, diarrhea) to soy as she did to the milk protein. We were also feeling frustrated and worried, but thankfully she drank the Alimentum without any problems. Hang in there and good luck!
When my son had problems with not only the acid reflux but also a small amount of gas colic we switched over to the purple formulas, enfamil has one and Nestle good start has one where the proteins are broken down and easier to digest, another thing that we did to help with the reflux was to add a little bit of baby cereal to the bottle( actually on the recommendation of the pediatrician) so we had to make the nipples a bit bigger on the bottles but both of these things worked and after a few months we were able to go back to regular formula.hope you find the help you need.
My friend had to give this formula to her son and at first he wouldnt take it at all. The only way he would drink it is if it was very cold. Hope this helps and good luck.
T.
Have you tried goats milk? I have talked to mom's that have had success with that.
Lisa
R.,
My son had acid reflux problems and we put him on Nutramigen and he did great. It does smell really bad but a couple of doctors told me that for acid reflux and milk allergy it is the best formula out there. If you have to continue with it I buy it off Ebay because it is so much cheaper. I bought it for a year and never once got a can that was not exactly described and new like it said.
We used it 13 years ago with my son and I agree it does smell pretty bad. We tried every formula out there and finally agreed on that one. I mixed it with breast milk until each time we took away less breast milk. My husband would water it down more and he seemed to like the formula better. My son was a premie and we had to finger feed him with a tube for awhile. He had tremendous acid reflux, constipation and really bad colic until we switched him to Nutramigen. He has always had a sensitive stomach but we just really have him stay away from soy because it has never been good for him. I will be praying for you and your family. Hang in there, it will so get better. Someone had mention try mixing with goats milk.(The whole organic thing might work)
OH R.! I thought I was the only mom out there that EVER had this problem!!!! My son is 10 now and i went thru the same thing with him as an infant!!! You may think that I am crazy but, I had to BUY A NANNY GOAT and milk her. I know this is drastic! But let me tell you that it only got WORSE before the milk change. I am not an "organic" person, but my baby was very frail and puked constanly! I know you are thinking HUHUH! I did too! But they have some awesome milk in the Lactaid section of your grocery store that is Goats milk and I still have to buy it. Jake is great now and nows that he can not have anything but goats milk. hope all goes well and you get some great advice!
I had to edit this after reading the other responses! my son was allergic to ALL FORMULAS!!! if you read the can MOST formulas are MILK based, even the soy ones! i had to do something or my baby would have not grown to his normal ranges! Goats milk is awesome! I just hope that you and your son find the right milk. Feel free to Email me if you need to ____@____.com I could type for days on this subject!
My son had to use this formula and it took him a couple of days to get used to it. We tried putting a dab of juice in the formula when he first started taking it and that seemed to help him get used to it. Best advice I can give you is wash your bottles soon after he finished them. It smells even worse after sitting in the bottle all day!
