we have exactly the opposite problem. It took forever for our ped. to diagnose our daughter with reflux, and we were miserable till they did. I asked both my lactation consultant, and ped. if it could be reflux many many times. (Both my husband and grandmother have it as well, so I knew it could be a genetic thing) I was told I had overactive letdown, then it was not enough milk, then it was what I was eating, then it was something else, and on and on it went. I finally stopped nursing and switched her to formula, and we were still having problems, that is when the doctors finally decided it was reflux. Now three years later we are being sent to a ped. GI doc. since she is now maxed out on meds and still having problems. If they had just trusted me early on, we would have been much happier those first few months.

Both of my children were MAJOR spitters. My laundry pile was sky high. These spitups weren’t minor… they were major. We mentioned it to the doctor with our first and she offered a prescription, but we declined knowing he would grow out of it. Both babies were breastfed so I played with my diet, but nothing changed. But what was interesting was my son was a very unhappy infant — I call it colic because he screamed for hours and hours every day for 4 months — but my daughter who probably spit up more than her brother was a perfectly peaceful baby. Both kids grew out of it and neither has had any upper GI problems.

It really needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis. My son was also a spitter and a fussy baby, but I never thought he had reflux, and it was one of the things we were aware might become a problem for our kids. He always gained weight, and other than a few specific times in the day he was generally happy after about 12 weeks. My daughter on the other hand was fussy all day, and all night. She only slept about 10-20 min. at a time and would wake up screaming. When she did sleep she was very restless. She couldn’t eat without pain. She would stop every few seconds and start screaming. Until she was on the meds she either didn’t gain any weight or lost weight. In a case like my daughters is was obvious what the problem was (at least to me) If they had wanted to give my son medication for reflux, I would have refused though.

@Marj – similar experience to what you had…even though our little dude wasn’t much of a fusser or a spitter (unless my MIL fed him a bottle, which I attributed to user error as others fed him bottles in my absence with no fuss and no muss!). Hiccups and burping were met with “you need to give him gripe water!” or “you need to get that child (fill in the blank)”. Funny. He was not fussy, he wasn’t particularly gassy, and he gained weight/slept/ate just fine.
I think Heather and bob have it right…case by case basis, not just a blanket prescription! It sure does sound like bob’s child needed it though!