I have a one month old daughter who has "spit-up" an entire meal at least once per day for the last three days. It doesn't seem to matter if the milk came from me or from a bottle (I am pumping and giving her a bottle to prepare her for when I go to work). She has only had three bottles so far. I can't really tie it to anything I've eaten and she is still having dirty diapers... so I don't know what it is.
I talked to a nurse at my doctors office and she said as long as it isn't forceful vomiting... what exactly does that mean? Any suggestions to stop the spit up?
Thank you, everyone, for all of your great advice. We spoke to a nurse at my doctors office (a couple of times) and have decided to try to keep Madelyn on a schedule. She should be going at least 3 hours between feedings (it doesn't always work, but for the most part we stick to the schedule). And the nurse also suggested that we limit how much she gets when we giver her a bottle. We've been at this for about 5 days and she hasn't had a big spit-up since. So we are guessing that we were over feeding her. I am also watching what I eat to see how things affect her.
We will keep an eye on her in regards to the reflux possibility, but for now we are all doing great!
Thanks again!
One of my boys used to throw up half of what he ate afterwards. He kept growing and nothing seemed to be wrong with him so the doctor didn't worry about it, and he slowly cut down over time. Before he was one it had completely stopped.
Hi, My son is almost 2 1/2, when he was a baby, he spit up a lot and we went through many formulas until we had him tested for acid reflux. He had it, and a medicine. He was also put on AR formula, stands for added rice, when it hits the tummy, it thickens and it helped a lot. Someone mentioned that the baby will have digestive problems forever, I thinked thats the term she used. They don't. My son had it the whole time until he was 1. We took him off the meds and he was completely fine. Hope this helps
Thanks
Hi J.,
My son ,now 34 years old, used to spit up his food as a baby. I learned from the doctor that some babies take in more than they need but they need that sucking action. That's when the pacifier comes in handy. If she's growing at a normal pace and is healthy I would try giving her a little less at feeding time and if she gets cranky after feeding try the pacifier. Good luck.
Nan
Baby vomit smells like adult vomit. Baby spit up does not. Spit up is just a bit and it usually happens after a burp or a hiccup. You will so know if it is forceful vomit...it will be everywhere and it will be the entire contents of her stomach.
It could be that she is drinking too much. Once that reflex kicks in to throw up-it is hard to stop. How much is she eating? Will she take a pacifier? Also it could be acid reflux. There are medications and techniques to help if that is the case. She may have an intolerance to milk products as well. All worth research with a health care provider.Spit up isn't usually a whole meals worth, although liquids always look like a lot when they are out of the body. Throw up usually has some curdle to it because it has been in the stomach. Good luck to you-please don't let it go for too long.
Don't worry J. and DON'T let anyone tell you she has "Reflux". Please don't give her drugs for it because it will pass in a few days or perhaps months. Reflux drugs set kids up for a lifetime of acidity and digestive issues. We are just beginning to find out the consequences of this short-sighted response to the normal digestive issues of infancy.
If you want to find out more about spitting up, call the La Leche League or look them up on line.
Nursing moms motto: walk softly and carry a dry diaper for spit-ups!
Our dd (our 3rd child) would just spit up & was a happy spitter as the dr called her, it just came out of her mouth & ended up on her face & bib. That is OK.
DS#2 used to spit up as well, but I say now that he didn't need bibs he needed rain boots, when he spit up his legs & feet got wet, etc. That is forceful spitting up & what the Drs worry about.
Hope that helps.
Hi, congrats on your baby! We had spit up with all 3 of our children till they were about a year old and spent more time upright.THey all had reflux. What we did, and it worked, was to feed in small amts, and to prop them up in an indoor car seat right after feedin. No horizontal. This worked wonders. Hope it works for you, as well.
Forceful vomiting is when the vomit forcefully leaves the mouth and shoots out from her body. Otherwise it's just spit up. If she's only doing it once a day I wouldn't think it's reflux. Is she crabby when she spits? Does she arch her back? Not want to lie down on her back? Turn away from food? Gaining weight at a healthy rate? There is a lot more to reflux than just the spitting. Although annoying to clean up, some babies are just "happy spitters". Unless she seems uncomfortable I wouldn't be worried about it.
J.; spit up will come drooling out the mouth, vomiting will go farther away from the child and will splat other than on the child, usually they spit up cause they have gas, and the food gets trapped on top of the gas bubble, and the bubble has to come up, so does the food with it, this is normal for spit up, just burp more often or rub their little backs might help, enjoy life D. s
If it's not projectile vomiting- Shooting strainght out away from the body (as opposed to just landing on or in the lap of your child. Than it's probably spit up. My youngest had this issue for a while.
Our daughter spit-up constantly for the first few months. Sometimes the spitting up was gushing and forceful (we used to caller exorcist baby). Vomiting would be when the whole body wrenches, like when you throw-up. We did nothing about it and glad we went this route. We didn't feel she had acid relux but she was very gassy.
With acid reflux she should show signs of discomfort. More so after spitting up than before. Acid reflux baby's usually have poor wt gain. If she is gaining wt and has wet/poopy diapers don't worry about it. It will stop as she gets older. Most people who try the medicine say the spitting up gets better after a month or two. That means the medicine didn't work and the baby needed to to develope.
I would advise against adding cereal to the bottle because she is more likely to have food allergies, gain weight quickly and choke.
It sounds like your little one has reflux. My son has it too. It seems like he spits up an entire meal but they dont actually. My son is now 6m old and 24lbs and 28 inches and he still spits up. He is growing at a normal pace and is very healthy. 92% on the charts. I have been giving him acedophalis (sp) and it seems to help. You can check it out at a local health food store. He is doing great and it seems to be not as much anymore. I did put some rice in his bottles and that seemed to help too. I would check with your doc. They wanted me to give my son some prevacid and it didnt help. I have heard that this is sometimes cause by us moms having been on antibiotics while pregnant. Their digestive system needs to get stronger. I hope this helps!!
I had the same problem with my son. Trust me, you will know the difference between spit-up and forceful vomiting. I thought my son was practicing for a role in the Excorcist movie. It turned out he had acid reflux. The doctor put him on Zantac and it worked really well. I also used Dr. Brown bottles. They seemed to help reduce alot of the gas which helped decrease the spit-up.
I remember wondering the same thing with my first, and then he had the stomach flu, and we knew! Vomiting, you usually have some indication--the kid kinda gulps and lurches a little before it happens. Also, vomiting is usually from the stomach and seems to involve the whole body. Spit up can be very forceful (my 2nd is teething and just spit up a ton the other day, very forcefully) but it's generally in one big blech and then it's out. Also, spit up seems to come from higher up--it's not a whole body thing but a burp that brought up liquid (sometimes quite a bit). My kids both spit up; my first spit up every feeding, sometimes more than once a feeding, often quite a bit. We never had him on meds for reflux, and he's just fine and happy (I have no idea whether it was reflux). People told us he would stop spitting up when he learned to sit up; he didn't--in fact, sometimes he did it more, since he was bending and on the go quickly after he'd eaten. He continued spitting up until after he turned one; sometimes there was even food in spitup, but it was still fairly easy to tell the difference between spitup and vomit.
J.,
I see you have lots of reponses all ready, but my son would do something similar. It started around 2-3 weeks and lasted for several months. I actually don't remember exactly when he grew out of it. It seemed to me like it was a burp/spit up gone horribly wrong! It always happened when he was nursing (or had just finished) and he would get this look in his eyes like "Oh No - here it comes" and then splat. ALL OVER me, and it was a lot of milk. It didn't smell like vomit, as it was what he had just eaten. Sometimes I'd end up nursing him again shortly after. It was a huge mess. It went forcefully from his mouth, but he didn't heave or seem like he was throwing up, it was more like a forceful spit up.
Anyway, I'd keep watching it, try to track when it happens so you can discuss teh specifics with your Dr. It might be worth talking to a lactation consultant about the symptoms as well.
Good luck, hopefully your little girl will out grow it like my son did.
J.
SAHM to Charlie (3) Joey (19 months) and baby girl due Nov.
I agree with everyone else's comments on the difference between vomiting and spitting up. As far as amounts, one tip I learned when my daughter was little was to take a tablespoon of water and pour it out on the counter. It makes a HUGE mess, but it wasn't really that much liquid. This helped to reassure me that even though it looked like my daughter had lost her entire meal, it might not have been quite as much as I thought. Most of the time, spitting up is more of a laundry problem than a health problem, as Dr. Sears says!
First off "forceful vomitting" is what my daughter had when she was about 2 weeks until about 3mo's. I finally forced her pediatrition to do a upper gi because i was concerned she would do this and choke to death in her sleep. The valve btwn her tummy and throat was weak. She was on meds for about 2 mo's and seemed to grow out of it. Forceful vomitting (also known as projectile vomiting) is when they spit up but it lands a good 2-3 ft away..no lie! I can laugh about it now but it scared me to death when my daughter was little.
As far as the spitting up, maybe try burbing about 5-10 min's into the feeding and then letting her eat more then burp again when feeding is over. Good LUck
"Forceful vomiting" goes across the room. Everything else is just "spit-up" and is perfectly normal, will stop when she gets to be about 9-11 months old, will drive you crazy cleaning up, but does not need drugs to "fix" it. Buy lots of cloth diapers to use as spit-up rags. They are big, inexpensive, and wash easily. Always have one in hand.
J., it sounds like your daughter is teething. My son is going thru this and like my first son, he's also acting like he's getting a cold. Acts ok-but at the same time a little fussier than normal, but doesn't act sick. Baby's start showing signs of teething long before they actually get them in. As for other the other advice given to you-baby vomit does smell like adult vomit. Baby spit up doesn't. Good luck.
