13 week-old hardly eating!

[Kizzy2109]

Hi all,

My 13 week old has lost interest in eating over the past few weeks. He was BF for 3 weeks then we moved on to formula as I was having trouble with latching on and was in a lot of pain. He started eating a lot more after that and was on 6 or 7 ounces every 3-4 hours. We are using MAM bottles and were using the newborn teats (slow flow) and aptimil milk. However he was starting to take an hour to eat just 4 ounces and was falling asleep or playing with the bottle in his mouth. He started waking up in the night for a feed - which he hadn't done since week 5 - so he obviously wasn't getting enough during the day.

My mother-in-law suggested moving up to the medium flow teats which we did. He found the flow too fast for the first day and was coughing and choking on it but seemed to have the hang of it. Over the past few days he had started just taking 3 or 4 ounces at a time and refusing any more. Again he is waking up in the night for a feed.

He is happy, smiley and playing as he was plus there are plenty of wet and dirty nappies. He does have a bit of a cold at the moment so that may be having an impact on his eating. I'm just concerned that he won't be gaining weight at the same rate that he was. My health visitor had a drop-in clinic on a Wednesday afternoon so I'll take him in then. Any advice on what I can do until then? I tried going back to the original teats and he took just 1 ounce of milk.

Thanks x

[MiniMaxi]

Hi, hope you got some help from the HV? We are having a similar problem and think it's silent reflux - could be worth looking into? Hope things resolve soon.

[Kizzy2109]

Thanks for the reply. He is pretty much back to normal and bizarrely was still putting weight on at his normal rate (along the 75th centile).

Our health visitor is a bit of a loose cannon and told me I needed to 'calm down' as I said I was a little worried about my son's eating...He did have a bit of a post viral rash so that may explain the eating. I'll book a GP appointment if it happens again.

How are you getting on? Any better?

[MiniMaxi]

Glad things are looking better! Our LO is now on ranitidine for the reflux - it does seem to help but wears off before we can give the next dose so it's a bit hit or miss as to whether he'll feed well or reject the bottle completely! Fingers crossed for us both...!