Bloggers, instagrammers, facebook users, tweeters ... are all accused of only sharing the perfect moments of their lives so here goes with my confessions to a not so perfect life:

Ethan loves to bop along to Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines and knows the video clip by the first frame - I do change the channel when Miley Cyrus comes on though.

Ethan has a car DVD player and watches a rotation of Disney movies. My kid despises the car at the best of times and if this gives me even 10 minutes of concentration on the road and driving, I'm sold!

I love a glass of wine or two and yes, I have breastfed after a glass of wine.

Ethan licks the window, the floor and anything else he can reach with his tongue and no, my house is not spotless all the time (or even some of the time).

We turned Ethan from rear facing spot on 6 months despite me being an advocate for rear facing as long as possible. The positioning created more reflux pain for him and this made car travel a little more bearable.

We tried Ethan sleeping on his tummy from about two months (with breathing mats). Sometimes he settled, sometimes he didn't but he survived.

I don't iron ... ever! It gets hung up after washed and chances are if it needs ironing, Scott does it or it never gets worn again.

Our bed is lucky to be made 4 times a week ... and one of those days is by my mother in law (bless her).

I often forget to floss.. last night I realised its been a fortnight.

Some nights I just don't feel like cooking so E gets an omelette and we have toasted sandwiches (or a bag of microwave popcorn). It doesn't do any of us any harm.

I often have to rinse one load of washing 3 times before I get around to hanging it out.

That's just a few and I think I might start a regular confessions post in the interests of 'keeping it real'.

You may have read my post on our journey with infant acid reflux - http://gcrealestategirl.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/reflux-hell.html  ... One of my most hellish and painful experiences ... watching my tiny baby scream in agony and be helpless to stop it. I still get tears thinking about those days. 

E is now 12 months old and his doctor has recommended weaning him from the Losec medication that removes acid from his gut in the hopes he is now developed enough to no longer require it. The Losec takes 2-4 weeks to wean from his system so for the last two weeks we weren't expecting any real changes however we have noticed that while E has never been a great sleeper, he had improved over the past few months and has now gone back to his old ways of waking every hour or so the past 3 nights as opposed to sleeping from 7pm-12am then a 2-3 wakeup until 7am. I can't be sure this is the result of his reflux and the Losec weaning but he is waking crying and is extremely restless, settling best propped on my pillow beside me rather than flat on his bed or ours.  

I would prefer not to start him on Losec again but obviously, will do whatever helps him. To this end, I have been doing more research and reading on 'silent' acid reflux and have come across several instances where it has been suggested that breastfeeding mothers taking antibiotics in the early weeks of their baby's birth can be a factor in causing infant reflux.

I had tearing during E's delivery and as a result, was administered antibiotics by IV every 4 - 6 hours for the 48 hours post birth. I was then put on 2 lots of strong antibiotic tablets for the 2 weeks following. I was assured they were compatible with breastfeeding and were to prevent any infections. The sad thing is, they may have contributed to either E developing the reflux or the severity of it.

Here is some of the stuff I found:
This is obviously not a conclusive reason as to why E has reflux but interestingly, my sister, sis in law and two other friends who had babies this past year also experienced a same degree or worse tear than me and received none or one round of antibiotics by IV and nothing further ... none of their babies have or developed reflux.

It makes me sad to think E might have developed reflux as a result of my medications and it makes me angry that the doctors prescribed them to me without consideration to this fact. However I also accept that this may not be a fully proven factor in reflux and I haven't researched any studies etc on this apart from one I found at http://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums/f36/study-links-maternal-antibiotic-use-colic-reflux-98850/ ...

FEMS IMMUNOLOGY & MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 56 Issue 1, Pages 80 - 87
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Influence of antibiotic exposure in the early postnatal period on the development of intestinal microbiota
ABSTRACT
The influence of antibiotic exposure in the early postnatal period on the development of intestinal microbiota was monitored in 26 infants including five antibiotic-treated (AT) subjects orally administered a broad-spectrum antibiotic for the first 4 days of life and three caesarean-delivered (CD) subjects whose mothers were intravenously injected by the similar type of antibiotics in the same period. The faecal bacterial composition was analysed daily for the first 5 days and monthly for the first 2 months. Terminal restriction fragment length polymor-phisms in the AT subjects showed less diversity with the attenuation of the colonization of some bacterial groups, especially in Bifidobacterium and unusual colonization of Enterococcus in the first week than the control antibiotic-free infants (AF, n=18). Quantitative real-time PCR showed overgrowth of enterococci (day 3, P=0.01; day 5, P=0.003; month 1, P=0.01) and arrested growth of Bifidobacterium (day 3, P=0.03) in the AT group. Furthermore, after 1 month, the Enterobacteriaceae population was markedly higher in the AT group than in the AF group (month 1, P=0.02; month 2, P=0.02). CD infants sustained similar, although relatively weaker, alteration in the developing microbiota. These results indicate that antibiotic exposure at the beginning of life greatly influences the development of neonatal intestinal microbiota.
________________________________________
Received 11 July 2008; revised 17 January 2009; accepted 15 February 2009.
First published online 6 April 2009.

With consideration to this information though, I am going to start E on some children's Inner Health plus (a probiotic) in the hope of promoting good bacteria in his gut thus improving and aiding in his digestion.

Do you have or know a bub with reflux? Have you heard of this or had any success with treatments other than medication for severe cases?

I recommend going to http://www.reflux.org.au/ for some information if you think your baby might have reflux.