Acid Reflux ???

The first three weeks of Ethan's life, he was a very fussy little guy. He had very few quiet alert periods and was usually fussing when he was awake (and not feeding).


After observing his behavior carefully for a few days, we concluded that he was probably hurting from acid reflux. I had been eating a lot of tomato-based foods those first few weeks because we were blessed with gift meals from other church families, and the majority of those meals included some type of tomato sauce. I also drank orange juice every day during those first weeks, just as I always have. After we zeroed in on reflux as a possible reason for Ethan's fussiness, I cut all acidic foods like this out of my diet. We also started keeping Ethan upright as much as possible, and putting him to sleep on his side at a slight incline.


Either these changes, or just his increasing strength, or a combination of both, caused a significant change in a matter of days. His fussiness continued to decrease during that fourth week of life, and he has been a reasonably happy little guy for the past 10 days or so. He is still needs more holding and help getting to sleep than Caleb did, but now we are blessed with many hours of quiet alert time and even several smiley periods each day. At this point, we're not entirely sure whether or not he has/had reflux, but we are very happy that he is feeling so much better, and I am continuing to stay away from acidic foods as much as possible. (I tried eating something with marinara sauce four days ago, and he was very fussy the next morning.)