My dd is coming up for seven months and she's always been a troubled feeder (reflux since birth). However, in the last few weeks I literally have to force her to drink from the bottle, it's always the same at every feed. She will kick up a right old fuss as soon as she sees the bottle coming towards her and then refuses to open her mouth.
When it first started I thought that it was just a phase and went with it believing that she would just eat when she was hungry, which she sort of did, ie snacked through the day and started waking during the night to eat as well. Although the quantity slowly dropped to nearly half her usual quota. After a week or so of this I began to panic a bit and wondered if a habit had been formed and decided through frustration, sleep deprivation and sheer worry that I'd have to start being a bit stricter so I began to basically wrestle the bottle into her mouth, and she actually did start drinking more and her night feeds have more or less stopped.
The only problem now is that I have to go through a battle during every feed. Nightmare! Could this stem from her reflux? I'm additionally trying to get her interested in food, unfortunately that also seems to have become another battle zone.
Any advice extremely welcome. Sorry so long.