7 Month Old with GERD and Feeding Issues

I went to a seminar last night, and the woman who was speaking is an Occupational Therapist, and she said that the earlier she can see a baby the more she can help with issues just like this. I went through much of what you are talking about, and I just wish so much someone had recommended OT to me before 20 months when mine ended up there. Knowing what I know now, I would go there before changing anything else. There is a correlation between feeding/gerd/eating issues and sensory issues. She said that she could help the parent make little changes that will make a huge life long difference. Why not give it a try?

Honestly she needs milk MORE than solids. Baby food is nothing but flavored goo to teach her to chew and swallow. It has the most minimal nutrition in it at all.

She's so young always nurse/bottle first to fill her up then give her some bites of table food to pick up and put in her mouth. She can still learn to feed herself but needs that complete nutrition in your breastmilk or her formula.

If her throat is red it hurts to swallow thick goo. She gets more nutrition from the milk than the food.

What happens is this. A mom feeds the baby their milk for months and months. The baby is happy and content to have this. It completely gives them all the nutrition they need. Then they get a bit bigger and need more nutrition.

Instead of giving them as much milk as the need they start feeding them baby food, which has nothing in it. It fills them up but their bodies are screaming for vitamins and nutrients so they cry and they get fed more baby food. They are full for a bit but the food doesn't satisfy their basic needs to they cry and want more but instead of feeding them their nutritious milk they get more food and it has nothing in it they need.

So it appears they are a good eater and they're getting fat/gaining weight. But it's because the baby food isn't digesting and doing them any good. It's turning to fat and they're starving inside.

Please give her more milk, as much as she can drink but not all at once, that fills the tummy too much and then it comes back up.

She has plenty of time to eat food when she's older. It also can go into her tummy and be hard to digest so it sits there and rots. Making her GERD even worse.

At 7.5 months she should not have been eating enough solid foods that if she stopped it should affect anything.

Solid foods before 12 months are not for nutrition. They are to rule out allergies (why you space new foods 3-5 days apart) and to let them practice learning the tongue motion needed to move foods from the front of the mouth to the back and then swallow.

So - your daughter does not NEED solid foods at all.
I would let her be for another week or 2 and then slowly reintroduce solid foods again - one at a time so she is not overwhelmed.

My foster son has GERD. The medication helped. Once you eliminate the symptoms they will not have pain so they should eat more.

GERD may or may not resolve. So here are some things that you can do in the meantime.

1. Make sure you keep your daughter upright for 30 minutes after eating. Yes, this is difficult if you daughter eats right before going to sleep.

2. Put a wedge in her crib so that her head is elevated while she sleeps. You can buy them online or at some drugstores. I think maybe Walmart or Target would carry them also.

I can't comment on a chiropractor, but I know there are moms on here who have used them. I tend to go more for traditional medicine, but that's me.

My kids didn't eat solids until their first birthday when they went to table food. I tried baby food but they rejected it and all their nutritional needs are met from breast milk/formula.

Personally, I would not trust a chiropractor to adjust my baby.

Yep! Took my daughter to Chiro. She had 4 treatments & was 90% better & moved up on the weight percentile chart. I had my doubts but so glad I took her.

She's only 7 months. No need to worry about solids yet. Breastmilk has more calories than baby food. Advice that helped me with my reflux baby was to feed half as much twice as often. So if you used to nurse on both sides, 10 min per side, every 4 hours then switch to nursing one one side only every 2 hours. That way the baby's tummy does not get so full and less comes up to be irritating. But you still get all the calories into her that she needs.

She'll go back to solids when she's ready.

Did they test her for strep throat?