Baby wont take breast. Is he teething or have I messed up?

[amysun]

My three month old has been a great feeder until late but has been really fussy over the last week; drooling everywhere, chewing, generally unhappy and has kept coming off the boob throughout feeds.
I went to the doctor this week and had his temp , throat and ears checked and all is good there so the doctor thought pre teething might be a possibility. I tried the teething gell and that seemed to sooth him a little.
Yesterday I went to get him weighed and it turns out he has dropped 2percentiles.I saw the health visitor (a cow) and she told me to give him2 ounces of formula after every feed over the next week to try and bulk him up and come back in a week.
I started last night, that went fine, as did the night.. But all day today he has been screaming and arching his back whenever I offer him my boob and will only take the bottle.
I really dont want to go 100%to formula, havent had breast feeding probs up to now and really dont know what to do.
Help please with advice.
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[milkbeard]

sorry to hear your having such a bad time. does sound like teething has begun-oh the joy. don't reaaly have any advice but in my experience hv tend to jump in with formula feeds. what about contacting bf support group like nct, or la leache or local ones?

[MrsJamin]

DS did this when teething + tired at around 3 months- teeth appeared 6 weeks later.

Can you express milk so he can take this in a bottle and you don't need to resort to formula? Also try putting bonjela on his gums before a feed. calpol is brill too, as is ibuprofen. You have my sympathy, it's not fun and it does feel like they are rejecting you - when they're not, it's just uncomfortable for them.

[pudding25]

DD is nearly 16 wks. At around 12 wks, she did pretty much the same thing. Dr thought it was teething too. Gave her calpol. She did the screaming on booby thing too. She was already having 1/2bottles a day and was taking them better.
After a few days, it all calmed down and she was back to normal. Don't know if it was teething or not. I think around this time, they discover they can chew on things and their saliva glands develop.
Oh, she also dropped a bit on percentiles. Nice hv told me not to worry as it was perfectly normal. Was never told to top up bf.
I would continue trying to bf. Do it when ds is sleepy and always in a dark quiet room where there is no distraction. This helped me. I still try and feed her somewhere quiet now as she is becoming so easily distracted.

[turtle23]

Same thing happened to me and HV convinced me to switch to bottles. I went back to BF though as I worked out he was teething (she said he was just stubborn and would eat when ready..grr) and two teeth popped out and he's fine again. He dropped nearly 10 centile and is now right back up (actually above) where he was. Just remember that mother's motto of "this too shall pass!"

[amysun]

Thanks for all the advice. How did you get back to breast after bottle??I am beginning to wonder if he just would rather take the bottle as it is easier.He sucks on the boob for a bit then starts arching his back and screaming.Happy as anything with the bottle. Any ideas here?

[londonirish]

Amysun-DD is 16 wks and she too gets pretty distracted when feeding-arching her back & crying also. When she does this I put a dummy in and when she is calm, I guide her back to the breast. This goes on for a little while and then she settles down for a good feed. It's pretty annoying as its difficult to feed her anywhere else except for a nice quiet area...she also feeds really well from a bottle but I'm being too stubborn to give into that yet. Don't know if this wil help.........!

[kwt]

i'm so relieved that other people are facing the same thing! 3 month old dd has been doing that for several days - chewing on her hands, drooling everywhere, popping on and off the boob several times each feed, and impossible to feed in public as it's so messy and she gets so distracted. good to know that it does get better.. does it only get better after the teeth come out, or after a week or two? because i don't think i could face the pulling off if she has teeth as well..

[pudding25]

My dd definitely settled down about wk 14/15. She still needs to be fed somewhere quiet in order to get her to feed properly though but at least isnt pulling off screaming. She is still sucking on her hands and drooling but I think it may just be developmental as opposed to teething. Who knows!