My 4 month old has been on Good Start formula since 2 months old when I stopped breastfeeding. He is spitting up A LOT, often 1/2 a bottle at each feeding. Because it's not staying down, he's wanting to eat very often and of course a lot over night. Today I am beginning a switch to Enfamil A.R. which is for babies that spit up frequently. Only gave him 5 oz of it so far today as I am gradually making the switch. Any suggestions on how to gradually change formulas?? Does anyone have any experience with Enfamil A.R.???? It seems to be working thus far, any Good Start feeding ends in constant spit up and the couple short bottles I gave him with the Enfamil there's been no spit up, but it's still soon to tell. Any suggestions would be great!
We would do the following: A few days at 25% new/75% old...then 50/50 ....then 75/25. After about a week you are at 100% new formula. hth!
i used enfamil ar with my older daughter and it was such a blessing... she spit up soo bad and that formula worked great. the only down side is that it has (had to at that time, i assume it's the same)to sit 5 minutes before feeding the bottle - those were the longest 5 minutes when she was so hungry!!
After Trying EVERYthing-- we ended with "Enfamil Lipil" & Play tex drop in bottles.. they rock & you can squeeze all the air out of the bags to reduce Gas & fussiness! You can also try "Enfamil Gentle ease" its supposed to be easier on the tummy & easier to digest! The bottles made a huge difference for us because we were able to get all the air out with those drop in bags.. Good luck.
I switched formulas a couple of times and remember that I made the switch cold-turkey in the morning. Regardless of how you switch over, it will be important to give your baby 2 complete weeks on the new formula alone before making any other changes or switching. His little system needs to get completely used to the new one and spend some time on it before you evaluate how he is adjusting.
Please remember to talk to your Pediatrician about the spitting-up during the next well check-up. Most likely, your Pediatrician will suggest a new formula (like Enfamile AR), so you will already be ahead of the game! Good job Mama! I hope your little one feels better soon!
R., I know just what you are going through. My son still spits up, eventhough his is 15 mo and on milk and juice no more bottles since 12 mo. He had this problem since the day he was born and the hospital switched him to enfamil soy. The hospital ped was concerned, but his regular ped was not. The hospital ped was not in our insurance plan, otherwise I would have stuck with him. They kept saying that it was normal, but my gut told me it was not. Then they said that once I'd start feeding solids it would go away, but again they were wrong. We eventually switched him to similac soy, and then regular similac, which was a lot better. Around 8 mos we switched to Target/walmart brand (made by the same company along with a few other store brands), which is comparable to enfamil, and that help more than the similac??? We too used the playtex bottles with the drop-ins. We always used nursery water and powder formula, the prepared formula was, at times, worse than the other! He wouldn't take a cold bottle or hot bottle, always room temp, which helped. Now if we give him too warm milk he spits that up too! It's like curdled milk and smells horrible,oh his doc said that was normal too. So we heat it up just enough to take the edge off and take the cup away if it sits out too long. We now have a new doctor with his 15 mo check up and will be discussing this matter with them. I am concerned that he has acid reflux, and is causing damage to his esophagus.
My suggestion is to go with your instinct. This is your child and not every child is the same. One formula will work for one child, but not for another. I would discuss this with your ped, but if you think its the formula I would switch, it doesn't hurt to try? Just make sure that you do not add the rice cereal to his bottles yourself. They don't recommend doing that anymore as the child can aspirate on unmixed rice cereal.
Good luck! I hope your little one is okay.
We had the best luck with similac ailimentum for our colicky son, who was spitting up a LOT and it worked great but I was only supplementing while pumping. We're supplementing now, for our daughter, with similac organic and there's very little spit up. Probably because there's less "junk". As far as switching, you could probably just go half and half or alternate feedings for a short time. It shouldn't be much of a problem.
Hi R. Call your son's peditrican and see what he says about this. With a child this young you need professional advice. Because what may have worked on someone's else child with formula may not do the same for your child.
We had issues with spitting up expressed breastmilk and Enfamil, so we too switched to Enfamil AR. While it did not cut out the spitting up completely it made a SIGNIFICANT difference in the volume. We combined that with a bottle change - Dr. Browns - and things were much better.
