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Infant feeding

Mixed fed baby suddenly uninterested in bottle & not gaining weight

6 replies

Flannelette · 03/02/2014 14:30

My 9wo has been mix fed since 3 weeks (for all kinds of complicated & agonising reasons - please don't try to tell me I haven't tried everything on the breastfeeding front - that's not what I'm asking). Over the past couple of weeks he has started refusing the bottle - sometimes he screams, sometimes he just laughs & plays with the teat.

He was actually admitted to hospital at 3 wks because of stopping feeding (he is high risk because of a traumatic birth & first week in intensive care), and they diagnosed a tummy bug & GERD which has greatly improved through a domperidone prescription.

My instinct is not to force anything - he'll take what he wants when he's hungry. And maybe, I thought, he's taking more from the breast than we all thought. But his weight gain has suddenly slowed dramatically - he's only put on 60g each of the last 2 weeks (should be over 200g apparently, each week?).

Does anyone have an experience like this, and any advice?

He's been happy with position/teat/temperature up till now so i don't know why any of them would be a factor. He has a tongue tie but why would it suddenly become an issue after 7 weeks? (he's getting it snippd anyway...).

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Flannelette · 03/02/2014 14:33

Also, he had a cold the last week which obviously isn't helping, but he didn't have it that first week all the trouble started...

He is otherwise content & calm...

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geekaMaxima · 04/02/2014 14:04

Bump

Didn't want to read and run so hopefully someone more knowledgable can comment.

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tiktok · 04/02/2014 17:17

This sounds understandably worrying ... But what does the doc or Hv say?

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Flannelette · 04/02/2014 18:26

Hv is fairly useless. Saw a gp today who said there's no obvious answer. He suggested trying hydrolysed formula which has so far helped nothing. In fact he is objecting more & more to bottle. We're having to syringe in some formula just to get some more calories & fluid in. Altho he often vomits most if it up.it's been suggested he just doesn't want anything that's not breast milk (clever boy) but he won't survive on what I can produce which is about half of what he needs...

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purplemurple1 · 04/02/2014 18:38

With my bottles at least the teat size changed at 3 month's but I found a bit before that mine got bored of the slow bottles, combined with being more easily distracted during feeds. I'd try going up and see how he goes for a couple of bottles.

Assume you've tried feeding in a dark room to see if he takes more giving a bottle first on the night feed could help as he'd be less likely to be after a playtime.

Are you burping lots during his bottles - might be playing with teat because he needs a burp.

(we also mixed fed after failure to thrive its a stressful time Flowers)

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purplemurple1 · 04/02/2014 18:44

Just thought - are you warming the bottles? I found cold bottles were sicked up more often than warm ones.

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