3 month old won't feed.

[nearlymumofone]

My 3 month old who has been breast fed and given the odd bottle of expressed milk refuses to feed most of the time. Today for example woke at 7am, fed for about 5 minutes, then at 1030am for about 30 seconds, 2pm for 5 minutes, 5pm for 5 minutes then at 6pm fed for 45 minutes as if he was starving. Sometimes he never has a big feed just 5-10 minutes max every 3 hours. He is so easily distracted that the slightest noise/movement while he is being fed and he finishes feeding in favour of looking around, and it is impossible to get him to go back on. He is breast fed but I have tried expressing and giving a bottle, 9 times out of 10 he refuses this or just takes an ounce.

For the first 6 weeks he slept and ate really well, since then it's been pretty much like this. I've asked advice from the doctor/health visitor and they have mixed reactions- the GP said breastfed babies are notoriously difficult, the health visitor found it really strange but offered no help or advice.

He went through a stage of not gaining weight/gaining very little weight. The health visitor referred me to the Gp, who was not concerned. However at his last weigh in he'd gained over half a pound.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does it get any better? Is there anything i can try to help him?

Thanks!!

Are you sure he isn't getting a decent feed in 5 minutes? My fourteen week old takes 5 mins to feed in the morning when my boobs are really full, and up to half an hour on each side in the evening when he has to work much harder as my boobs are much 'emptier' (I know they're never actually empty though. How often does he wee / poo and does he ever posset after the very short feeds?

wow- hadn't considered that. Although part of the problem is also that he doesn't actually feed in the morning unless I manage to get him to before we properly wakes up- when he's awake he's not interested. He used to posset all the time, now not so much really.

Yes you're right, sounds a bit odd... as his mother sure you'd know if he was interested in eating or not, and how much he was eating too I guess.

Could it be because he is teething and it hurts to feed?

Have you read this: www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/breastfeeding/distractedexpert/

or this:

www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/baby/back-to-breast.html

Maybe you should give him a multivitamin...and take him to the doctor to check there is nothing actually wrong.

They do get faster with practice/age. I imagine he is an efficient feeder now and also moving towards a weight more natural for himself. Mine started on the 9th percentile but ended up just below the bottom 0.4th percentile. I think their origional weight related to how much i ate during pregnancy - they found their second more natural weight a few months after the birth and now aged 2 and 7 are still on the same lower percentiles. I'm really not worried and hope you are not finding the HV's too stressful. The main quiestioni would ask is - does he look well and is he genrally doing all the usual 3 months things?

p.s. you should post this message in the feeding section, you'll get more replies.

What you said about him not feeding unless you caught him before he was fully awake - that reminded me so much of my DD.

She was extremely hard to feed. She was exclusively breastfed, would never take a bottle (of anything!), and would feed for a few seconds, or a minute or two, then pull off and get distracted. If I picked her up to feed her when she was not fully awake, I could get her latched on before she really realised (!), and she fed a bit better. She was my second BF baby and completely different from my DS.

She was 9 lbs at birth, but put on little weight and the HV was concerned, though she couldn't offer much advice. She said she had not come across this before .

I found this all incredibly stressful. I tried switching to FF in the hope that she would take a feed from someone else, but she refused everything. In the end, I persisted with BFing, and she did continue to put on little bits of weight. However, she slept through the night at about 10 weeks.

I weaned her as soon as possible - once she was taking solid food things improved - she put on weight, and the pressure was off me IYSWIM. I BF her at least occasionally till she was 12 months, she never took a bottle, and went straight on to an open cup.

However, this was all a good number of years ago - my DD is now a strapping 18 year old! - and I was 'allowed' to wean her at 4 months, so perhaps not as difficult as trying to persist to 6 months. But I clearly remember my frustration!

I would say don't be too hard on yourself - you are offering feeds, and some milk is getting into the baby! Some babies are just not keen feeders, but are interested in everything else around them! And if he is healthy and alert, I think it may just be part of his character. And, IME, it does get better.