My oldest has similar symptoms and we went dairy free.  Even Lactaid iritated her little tummy.

My son was had reflux that went undiagnosed until he was 5. Loooong story, but I'll try to sum up. He was born at 36 weeks with cord issues, so that is likely the cause (although they never really know). He was breastfed so formula wasn't the issue. We complained about eating issues at every check up, but the doctor assumed he was "picky" and told me to be a "tough mom" (whatever!).

Anyway, one of my sister's triplets also had reflux (required surgery), so we have lots of experience.

* reflux can be subtle and the discomfort can build slowly, causing odd patterns to eating (refusal, refusal, refusal, starving!). Kids like this often eat like snakes, refusing food due to the associated discomfort until they can't take it anymore and must eat, then over eat and feel pain casuing refusal again.

* Babies, toddlers and even young children simply can not discern the pain, identify is as food related and work with you at all. My son had reflux pain all his life, so he couldn't tell pain from hunger signals. Even at the age of 3, 4 or 5, he had great difficulty. He woudl say that he wasn't "hungry" and then 2 minutes later turn around and ask for something to eat. Even the word assocaitions got muddled.

* Reflux must be treated aggressively, not only from the concern of Barrett's esophagus (precancer changes), but because food aversions due to the pain of reflux can be irreversible. At the age of 5, when my son finally was dx'd, he hated food. He ate 7 things total. Again loooong story, but the eating specialist at his occupational therapy center told me the prognosis for him eating 'normally", "wasn't good". I can't stress this often over looked aspect enough - we struggle to get my son to eat.

* Symptoms are reflux can be "silent" as in the baby spits up, but only into the mouth and goes unrecognized (our case). Symptoms also include, excessive drooling, chewing on clothes, difficulty sleeping prone ("only sleeps in my arms"), snake pattern eating, respiratory infections or just hoarse voice in the morning / congestion in the morning, gagging, excessive fussiness/crying - as you can see these are symptoms that can easily be missed and attributed to other causes in babies. I believe that "colic" is really silent reflux in the majority of cases (most babies outgrow reflux).

* Yet, don't rely on the "most babies out grow it" - my son was FINALLY able to get off of his prevacid at the age of 9. My son's endoscopy was relatively normal - "slight nodularity" but not enough to account for his difficulties. So, they did a gastric emptying test next and found that his stomach empties at about half the normal rate (74 mins vs 35 mins) so this caused his symptoms. My nephew was doing well on his meds, but had occasional recurrences of drolling (this was around age 3), so they did a 24 probe test and found that he had peak acid reflux flow in the middle of the night that med changes didn't help. This test measures every splash of acid up into the esophagus for 24 hrs, and it's so telling esp on older kids because although significant acid is splashing up, the kids often report no diference - they are numb to the effects, because they've lived wiith the constant discomfort their whole lives. My son's doctor told me that she was glad that my son was a boy, because with his severe food issues already, they said that he'd be more susceptible to anorexia with the pressues that are usually put on girls.

I'm sorry that your baby has reflux. Hopefully, she'll be among the larger percentage who outgrow it. But, I wanted to offer the information that even though subtle, this condition must be treated seriously. Best of luck!