can't eat/won't eat. 11wk old. I'm at my wits end

[entropy]

I'm having a bad day today, DD ate reasonably well (for her) at 7am, 11am, and 2pm (average of 4oz each time) but has refused to feed since. (breast and bottle) she is very under weight(4th percentile) and I've been advised to get as many feeds into her as I can.

I don't want to let her go to sleep without any food as I'm worried her blood sugar will be very low. She never demands food and struggles to dream feed if she is really sleepy. but trying to make her eat is making her very mad and she already has feeding issues as she associated feeding with pain. She is on infacol for wind and Ranitidine and Domperdone(sp) for suspected reflux but I havent really got to the bottom of what causes the pain for her)

I've tried skin to skin,and every concievable breast feeding position not to mention several bottle feeds, I have given her to DH to see if my stress (which is considerable) is the problem.

if anyone out there has any suggestions please help!

[littlepiggie]

As long as she is still putting some weight on, maybe she just does not want to eat a lot.
Have you tried offering food every 2 hours, maybe breast then bottle, but if she refuses not to worry.
I would have thought that you worrying will just make the problem worse, have you tried keeping everything calm, maybe talk or sing to her, try to make feeding times nice, where she getts special time with mummy.
Other than that i dont know but i am sure there is someone who does.

[entropy]

Hi Kayzed

it was reading back to one of your earlier posts that made me think that dd may have silent reflux in the first place, the symptoms were very similar to what you described. I stopped the gaviscon when we started the Ranitidine, do you give you dd both together?

DH managed to get 3oz into dd last night whilst I was elsewhere (i seemed to be upsetting her) and we let her sleep after that. she dream fed fairly well through the night but I was so exhausted I didn't manage to get up quick enough to start the morning feed as a dream feed (seems to work much better that way)and this morning so far has been rough.

I started trying to feed at 2h intervals when dd was 5 weeks old. she was bf only at the point and only wanted to feed every 4h and was losing weight. The extra offering of feeds led to complete refusal to feed from the breast and I was forced to put her on formula. She has problems with every brand of formula we have tried including comfort and LF so I am trying to build up my supply again so that she is bf more. she has a habbit of arching her back and pulling, or violently turning her head whilst still latched on, which has made me very sore. She also feeds in little bursts and until yesterday feeding on and off for an hour followed by playing for an hour, followed by a sleep, was working ok as far as getting food into her went. she still fell off the 9th percentile line last week though...

I am trying to get a referral as I really think she is still in pain but its a little complicated as we move half way across the country next week. Our consultant here wants our new gp to do it but it is going to take a week to get a new gp and I don't want to delay it that long. have an appointment with our current gp tomorrow to see if he will do a long distance referral.

[entropy]

no whats that?

[taylormama]

Hi - sorry to hear your LO is struggling. How long has she been on meds for. My DS has silent reflux and was on domperidone and ranitadine from when he was 7 weeks old ... he now (at 21 weeks just has the ranitadine twice a day). the gavsicon made him worse (just a thought as it doesn't work for all babies) ... the Enfamil is available on prescription and is a milk which thickens on contact with the stomach acid - you need fast flow teats ... if your LO is on ranitadine which is an antacid, enfamil may not be suitable ... With my LO i found he was a little and often eater for ages, if he refused the bottle, i would leave him for a while and offer again. He now only has 6 oz per feed at 21 weeks ... please don't worry too much - some liquid is better than none but obviously if you are worried take her to the GP. HTH a bit.

[Lills]

entropy,
So sorry for you! I am having similiar problems in that my dd won't feed. She is also not asking for food and as soon as she realisesd I am trying to fob her off with a bottle (so I can get a break and someone else can feed her!) she screams. I am managing 1oz about every hour and my days are taken up by feeding. It is really hard not to stress but I have accepted she is underweight also and just isnt a big eater. You sound to me like a wonderful Mum is is doing her best. After the doc and medicine all you can do is persevere and wait for their tummies to get a bit bigger. Good luck with it all. It is exhausting! x

[littlepiggie]

With ds we had it the other was, it was after feeds he had the problem, he would feed on and off all day for comfort, and i think sucking is meant to help.
He has been on gavison since last month, seen a paed on monday as ds was taken into hospital, got to see a consultant in a couple of weeks.

[tribpot]

Just wanted to say, do bear in mind that 4th centile is a perfectly reasonable weight - you say she fell off the 9th a few weeks ago, clearly 20 years ago you would have no idea of such precise measurements and probably wouldn't be worrying so much. The whole centile range is normal.

[entropy]

I have indeed been moving house and DD has been on hunger strike during the comoton and has lost weight (2oz). she is now below the 2nd percentile. I wouldn't be worried if I thought for a second that she was just a small person, she is nearly at 75th percentile for her lenght and has visible ribs....

we saw our new GP last friday and are awaiting a referral to a new peadiatrition (sp) in the mean time I have found a couple of things that seem to help but things seem to work for a couple of days and then we are back where we started. KZ, your suggestion of feeding her in strange places worked initially but I ran out of new places after a few days. she fed really well in the bath for a day or so! she has stopped breast feeding (out of lazyness I think) but takes more from her bottle than she could possibly have done from the bf's (they weren't very long and were more of a struggle than a cuddle) hopefully this will make a difference. she also seems to prefer cartons of formula rather than the powdered stuff so she in on the one thing I said I would never give her whilst I was pregnant (there are contamination issues from the packaging) but if she eats now I don't care what minor problems there could be, it cant be worse than her starving herself.... I'm still very sad about stopping bf but I think in our case it was for the best.

I can get her weighed on thursday. It's a new clinic and therefore different scales but should give me an idea if the weight loss has stopped. Its will be on my birthday so I'm hoping for a nice weight gain as a present. keep your fingers crossed for us.

[entropy]

thanks for the support Kayzed. the weight was ok....she gained 7 oz but that is still in line with the 2nd percentile. she is eating better though. we are now up to 20oz a day. The HV we saw told me off when I told her how much DD has! I explained that it was a nightmare to get her to eat at all and that in the evening feeds she will refuse anything more than 3 oz, and that before we moved we had the help of a nutritionist and a paediatrician and really needed to get that back! but she seemed to think I was just being thick by not feeding her more.... luckily she wont be my perminant HV so finger crossed that the one I finally get to see will be more sensible.

[Liane]

My LO was exactly the same. The HV worried me to distraction saying she was underweight but didn't give me any advice about what to do. She used to choke and splutter when feeding and get into such a state that eventually didn't want to eat at all. I read about a condition that meant the sucking/swallowing reflex was out of sync (gets better the older they get) and got some carobel from the doctors to thicken her milk (can be used with EBM) This seemed to help a little but I found the only way to get her to eat a decent amount was to feed her when sleepy (just before naps) this way she would take 6-8ozs at a time. Seemed she was more relaxed and therefore the sucking/swallowing problem wasn't so bad. When awake she would only ever take 1-2oz. I always roused her slightly before putting her down to try to stop the wrong sleep associations. You say your LO's dream feed is her best so maybe this will work for you, The DF was always our best feed which is why I tried the sleepy feeds. Have to say she never liked her bottle (BF for 6wks but was too difficult) and only really caught up when she was weaned (didn't do it until 6months tho)she is perfect now though and I wish I hadn't spent the first 4-5 months of her life worrying. Enjoy her, she will be ok!