Your newborn baby has reflux and they have to be kept
upright after every feed for a little bit of time.
So that makes it super hard
to instill really good sleep habits, right?
Well, maybe not
just because your baby has reflux doesn't necessarily mean
that you can't instill good sleep habits right
from a young age.
Hi, I'm Amanda.
Founder and co-creator of Little Ones, Sleep Programs.
I'm a pediatric sleep specialist
and mother to two darling, little girls.
At Little Ones, we have comprehensive online Sleep Programs
for your baby and toddler in our custom-built app.
We also have in our app our customer support village
where our trained sleep consultants at their anytime day
or night, to be able to help you
through any bumps in the road.
If you need any further help see us at www.litteones.co
So back to today's question,
your newborn baby has reflux
and you need to keep them upright
to digest some of the milk after every feed.
This is actually a topic that is really close to my heart.
Both of my babies had reflux,
both for actually different reasons.
So the most common reason that a baby will have reflux is
because of an immature valve at the top of their tummy.
What this means is that the milk
that they are digesting is going into their stomach down,
but because of that immature valve,
the milk is flowing back up.
As it's flowing up,
if it is just milk and that your baby is absolutely happy
after they spill or after they bring some milk up
and they're not screaming and crying or anything like that.
And if they're absolutely happy when this happens,
that is completely normal.
And it's not actually esophageal reflux.
Actual reflux is when not only the milk comes up,
but also acid is coming up.
And the acid from the stomach is burning the esophagus
and meaning that your baby is going to be really,
really unsettled when this happens, they scream and cry.
For example, my first two had reflux due to this same issue.
She would scream for an hour after this happened.
If she burped
and a whole lot of acid came up out of her tummy,
she would scream and scream,
and she was generally unhappy all waking hours.
So you know that your baby has something wrong
when they are this unsettled.
As I said, if your baby is bringing up milk
and they're absolutely happy about it,
this is called a happy chucker
and they aren't actually classified as having reflux.
We also have a really good interview with a pediatrician
that I'll link right up here,
who also talks about what is reflux.
And she goes through the different types of reflux.
So, as I said, the majority of reflux is just
due to this immature valve system at the top of their tummy.
Once your baby starts sitting independently,
starts eating solids.
And also if it's not fixed by then usually
by the time they're walking,
the stomach muscles will help the stomach valve.
And it will all resolve itself.
But these babies often need to be kept upright
for a certain amount of time to help with keeping the acid
down into their tummy.
So how do you instill the good sleep habits,
if you are having to do this?
Feeding and sleeping are two separate things.
Usually feeding should happen quite separately,
a good easily, 15 minutes,
half an hour later as the sleeping.
They're not the same thing.
So unless it's the before the bedtime feed.
So before your baby goes to bed at nighttime yes,
even in our Sleep Programs, that will happen 15,
20 minutes before they go to bed.
But if your baby has reflux
and you know that your baby has reflux
and they need to be kept upright,
there's no harm in bringing
that before bedtime feed a little bit earlier.
So you've got time to keep them upright, hold them,
calm them down.
That gives you the time to keep them upright.
And then pop them into bed.
So if your baby is through the day needing
to have those upright times as well,
our Sleep Programs, we have the feed,
as soon as they wake up in the morning and you know,
straight after they have their morning nap,
straight after they have their lunch nap.
So there's plenty of time after those feeds
to keep them upright and let them then have a nappy off time
or whatever, playtime on the floor completely independently
of then winding down, settling and into feed.
Now often these with severe reflux will be
a little bit more unsettled when you do lay them down.
And, and the newborn ages,
this is absolutely fine to calm them down
and even hold them a little bit to calm them down upright.
And then by actually getting them to sleep by settling them
in some way.
Bum patting and shush patting is by far the best
for babies with reflux.
They do find being on their side less sore I guess for them.
So they can be on this side whilst you're settling them.
And then of course, safe sleep practices.
Once they're asleep,
you can roll them back onto their back.
Having good sleep habits
and making sure that your baby is still going to sleep
in their cot and overnight sleeping in the cot
or their crib.
That's absolutely still completely doable
with babies with reflux.
I did it with both of mine,
as I said, they had reflux for different reasons.
My first was from the immature valve.
The second baby that I had had reflux actually
from a lactose intolerance.
And she was actually throwing up milk and digested food.
And that was a different reason,
but obviously her reflux needed to be controlled
by removing the allergen, that was lactose.
So as I said, the first thing to work out is make sure
that you workout,
what is reflux?
And make sure you understand what reflux actually is
and work out if your baby has reflux with acid
or if they're just a happy chucker.
And if they're just bringing up milk,
that's absolutely fine it's completely a normal thing
for babies to have.
If your baby does have reflux
and it's mild holding them upright,
is absolutely fine after feeds,
that's still good to instill really good sleep habits.
And you can still do this after holding them upright.
It's completely fine.
You know that's really good to start from a young age,
but if you do have to settle them at those newborn ages
to settle them all the way to sleep the best way would be
to put them into the cot,
shush pat them on the side
and then roll them onto the back once they are asleep.
And that is absolutely fine
in those newborn ages, especially babies with reflux.
I hope you found this video informative.
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