Giving in...

I did it. I gave in.

In wanting to preserve our great breastfeeding relationship I vowed to not give Daria a pacifier.

Unfortunately Daria will not escape all the problems of being slightly early. She has reflux and has been on Zantac since 2 weeks of age. Some of you may remember this post I made about Arianna nearly a year ago when she started on Prevacid. The change was nearly instantaneous.

When we first took Ari to the GI clinic with her lack of weight gain, fussiness with feeding and spitting up they weren't going to do much more than what the pediatrician had already started, which was putting her on Axid (same active ingredient as Zantac). She was 6 months at the time and their reasoning was that reflux reaches its peak between 4 and 6 months of age and perhaps things would get better from here on out. She continued to have problems with eating and putting on weight and we didn't get her on something new until she was over 1.5 years old. Of course, as soon as we got her on Prevacid she did fabulously.

A conversation with my dad told me alot about the effectiveness of Prevacid. He has had several hernias in his adult life and suffered horribly with acid reflux, which runs rampant through his family (both sexes). As it turns out both of my parents are on Prevacid now and my father said his entire life changed when he started on Prevacid a bit more than 10 years ago. He said Zantac was an 'old medicine' and one that never worked for him. My dad was always the tall skinny guy and he was suddenly able to put on weight and enjoy food for the first time in nearly 20 years. That says something to a drugs effectiveness.

I don't want Daria to go through what Arianna went through.

She cluster feeds at night (between 6 - 11) and as a result has more spit up just from the sheer volume of food in her stomach. Poor thing pulls herself off my breast, screams and quickly spits up nearly everything she ate - its frustrating for me because she then wants to eat again and I think eating, for the most part, helps ease some of her pain, so she wants to do it all the time. Problem for me is that its late in the night and its not like I can take a nap during the day with an active toddler in the house, ya know?

We remember with Arianna that the physical act of sucking on a pacifier helped her - be that because it kept the acid down or because it was soothing - and I finally gave in and gave Daria a pacifier. She was reluctant at first but seems to be soothed with it when we know she's not hungry. Last night was surprisingly good too - she slept well and we enjoyed a pretty darn good sleep.

Preemie moms - Arianna had this problem but not sure if its due to reflux or not... Daria hadn't had a 'messy diaper' in 2 days. Ari would go as much as nearly a week without a messy diaper but we always knew she had motility problems as she was glycerine dependent in the NICU. So anyway, last night after putting some pressure to Daria's abdominal area (which we had to do alot with Arianna at this age) she finally had a messy diaper. Coincidence that she slept well during the night? I don't think so... She's totally breastfed and they're supposed to have an easier time with bowel movements right? I'm not sure if I can blame it on her tummy troubles or if this is normal.

Tomorrow we have her '1 month' pediatrician appointment and I'm going to ask for either a referral to a GI group or for them to try Prevacid on her. If she's having this much trouble at 1 month I'd hate to be here at 4 months when reflux is supposedly at its peak.

Poor baby :(