Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

Just curious if its helped with milk/protien intollerance and reflux? We just saw the Ped today after over a week of spititng up and screaming through feedings. She kept us on the Similac Alimentum, prescribed Zantac, and suggested we add rice cereal to his bottles to help him keep the formula down.

We've fed him twice so far with this method and it *seems* to be working, but I'm hesitant to really say "it worked!" yet. Any experience with doing this?

Also - we're using Playtex Drop-Ins. He's only 2 weeks old. Which nipples should we be using with the cereal for these bottles? The medium flow seems a bit too fast, but he cant get anything out of the slow flow.

Message edited 8/17/2009 10:34:26 PM.

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

How much cereal are you adding? I was doing this for a while but my DD had alot of trouble with it -- either she couldn't get the milk out of the nipple, or she was drowning in it. I just started doing it again today because her new formula (Elecare) is so thin. I added 1tsp per ounce and used a Stage 4 Dr. Brown's nipple. At first, it was too fast for her (but she couldn't get the milk out of the stage 3) so I would let her take a few sips then I took the bottle out a bit and let her catch up. After doing this a couple of times she figured out how hard she needed to suck to get the milk out and then she was ok. I'm not sure what flow to get with the Playtex nipples. I know in the Dr. Brown's the Y-cut are huge and I felt she'd never be able to handle that flow.

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

The drop ins have y cut nipples that say there for cereal. We don't add cereal to the bottle but we use the formula with the added rice starch for the reflux and it worked for a while.

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

yes - - -we put the oatmeal into her na-na bottle (night time bottle) this was while we were transitioning her to solids :)

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

Yes we started doing this with DS when he was 5 weeks old. The ped. said to add a tablespoon per ouce ut it seemed like a lot so we just did a little less. It worked! He stopped spitting up projectile style after the first bottle.

We had trouble with the nipples too. We used the drop ins. So, we used the slow flow but cut an X in it with a knife b/c the medium was too fast.

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

DS had reflux and was switch to Similac Alimentum, Zantac and rice. We used 1Tbsp of rice cereal in his bottle but that was for a 5-7oz bottle. And we added the rice to every bottle. It helped but wasn't 100% successful. I realized after a few days that it was the Zantac that wasn't agreeing with my DS so I called the Dr and we stopped using the Zantac. The reflux just about stopped with just using the rice in his bottle.

My DS is now 8mnths and we do not use rice in his bottle at all but we are still on the Alimentum. Around 6months I switch to using only 1/2Tbsp in his 7oz bottles, then at 7mnths I only put 1/2Tbsp in his nighttime bottle. At 8mnths we now use no rice and the reflux is gone.

Also I too use the Playtex Drop-Ins and my DS loved the medium flow. The slow flow was taking too long for him to eat and it seemed that he was getting frustrated.

Hope this helps...Good luck!

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

Yep, DS was on Zantac and we put oatmeal in his bottles and used a Y cut nipple. Big improvement! Good Luck!

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

DS was diagnosed with reflux when he was a couple weeks old. We put 1 tsp/oz of rice cereal in his bottles of BM and it worked like a charm. I had to switch to y-cut nipples with the drop-ins in order to get the thicker milk to come out. We didn't even have to bother with zantac or other meds. He became a new baby overnight! DS outgrew his reflux at around 8 months old.

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

We started adding rice cereal to the bottle at 3 months because of reflux. This was suggested by DD's GI doctor. It has definitely helped. She is also on Alimentum and Zantac.

Re: Anyone add rice cereal to bottles?

I used it for DS but i wasn't sure it was working, i knew for a fact the zantac was so I stopped putting rice. I used the dropins and also doc browns. the doc browns were so much better the first 3-4 months he burped right a way . after that I went back to dropins bc doc browns are a PITA