Don't know where to go from here…

I stumbled upon these forums by chance.. can’t believe it exists

I know there is a huge intro post with links and links galore.. I did try to navigate through some of them. It’s very overwhelming and a lot of information. I’ll give you the best abridged version I can of our story…

My son is 6 weeks old and we’re experiencing what I believe to be pretty decent reflux. Since he was about 3 weeks, he has become a very grumpy baby. If he’s not eating or sleeping, he’s crying and fussing. He was spitting up a ton, and from one feeding to the next – he’s been on Nutramigen for almost 2 weeks. Seems to have helped the spit up, but not the crying and fussing.

After 3 days on Nutramigen I begged the doc to let me start Zantac because I needed something else besides new formula which wasn’t doing the trick. So he’s been on Zantax (15 mg/ml) 0 he gets 1 ml twice a day. Giving it to him is a trick and a half, too. tastes terrible. We try to syringe it after he’s had a few sucks on his bottle. usually works but he’s spit it out a few times, too. It doesn’t seem to be doing anything for his reflux symptoms.

During feedings, he eats and eats and eats. They say you can’t overfeed a baby, but I swear if I put 10 oz in the bottle he’ll drink it. He was doing 3.5-4 oz every 3 hours for a good week or two. But lately he’s sucking the bottle dry and screaming bloody murder when we try to burp him and when he’s finished. So as of the last 24-48 hours I’ve been trying to ‘stay ahead’ of him. Two feedings today he got 5 oz – and drained it both times. At 6:30 he was overtired (doesn’t sleep, see below) and drank 2 of the 6 oz we put in, then passed out COLD. He just woke up (1 hour later) and DH is giving him the remaining 4-5 ounces.

His general behavior, though is constantly fussy. He always has his head arched back and turned to the side, his legs kick straight out. He’s almost kicked out of our arms. When close to our chests, he buries his head and moves it from side to side, never settling. His tongue is constantly in and out of his mouth, and he makes faces hours after a feed like he has a bad taste in his mouth. He’s always moving. I might get 30 minutes in a 24 hour span where he’s still and not fussing. He almost never goes down to sleep by himself. He’ll sit there and kick and grunt and flail his arms forever , even if he’s clearly exhausted, until he starts crying. We rock & swaddle and if he falls asleep in our arms 75% of the time he’ll hit the crib and be wide awake and kicking again. We give him white noise, but it doesn’t help him fall asleep.

His crib is inclined. We try to keep him upright. We use the FP Rock n Play sleeper a lot. He breaks out of almost any swaddle he wants to (and we use a few) but he needs to be swaddled to sleep soundly – he has horrible startle reflexes.

In general we’re just exhausted and frustrated. I don’t know where to go from here. We see the MD on Tuesday. She might want to get us to a Pedi GI…. what should I be saying, encouraging, demanding? What’s the next best step?

All I wanted was a happy healthy baby and he’s so cranky and restless