A New Approach ... and Acid Reflux??

We've continued to try and determine the cause of Gabriel's ongoing discomfort, and by extension ours :). I am pretty sure at this point it is not anything that I am eating; and we've also ruled out the running theory. This after we put Gabriel on formula for 24 hours only to find out he still has just as many tummy aches (he has been exclusively nursing since he was 2 weeks old, so this was a challenge). Similarly, the subsequent feedings after my race last weekend seemed to have no effect, so boo on the lactate idea too. It seems we've exhausted all conceivable triggers. All this to say, we've been researching and reading up on all things infant trying to put our finger on what is bothering Gabriel. I'm just not satisfied with the "he has colic" umbrella diagnosis. We've come up with two things to consider (reference the blog title).

First, the "new approach" bit... in reading up on what causes babies discomfort, I stumbled upon where studies have shown the emotional distress babies go through the first year of their life. This makes sense when you think about everything new they experience having nothing to relate it to; a total assault on their senses if you will. I won't go into the science behind it all (higher cortisol levels under stress, tears have ACTH (stress hormone) in them which need to be excreted to keep the baby in balance, etc, etc) but the long short of it is that sometimes babies just need to relieve stress through a good hard cry. How many times have you had a good cry and then slept really well afterward? So the idea is, as long as ALL of his primary needs are definitely met (food, diapering, warmth, etc), he just needs to be cuddled and loved on until he has a good little cry. This instead of incessantly trying to stifle his cries every time because we feel like bad parents if we let our baby cry, which I do. How many times have you been out in public and your baby starts to cry and immediately the peanut gallery stares holes in your head while trying to telepathically say "why are you letting your baby cry - do something!"...turns out it can be quite cathartic for the little one, albeit quite challenging for tired parents and innocent bystanders who value their ear drums.

So we've started soothing Gabriel through his crying and have been pleasantly surprised that it isn't total "psycho-babble"...Gabriel really does seem relaxed once he gets it all out, providing that we've soothed him through it. He still screams through the gas pains, which is something totally different and takes me to the next point.

Now, on to acid reflux. We are just on the front end of a two-week trip to SC and our first few days we spent in Greenville visiting friends and family. We stayed with some very good friends of ours (bless them for tolerating Gabriel's screams!) and as the mother of three my friend Tori and I were talking about Gabriel's issues. She did some extensive research and determined that possibly Gabriel has silent acid reflux. We had spoken to our pediatrician about acid reflux, which he does not seem to have the symptoms of, and had basically ruled it out. Turns out that with silent acid reflux, there are not as many outward signs like painful/constant spit-up, but it still can exist and upset a baby. So just over the past two days we've been trying to change some of Gabriel's eating routines in order to determine if he may be suffering from silent acid reflux. The jury is still out, but we're hoping to either rule it out (back to the drawing board), or contact the pediatrician for additional help when we get back to NYC. We will see...

More on the SC trip so far in the next few days!