Mixed fed 3 mo DD - suddenly refusing bottle

[AgruminoMum]

Hi all

DD 3.5 mo have been sucessfully mixed fed 50:50 for the last two months. She had diarrea 3 weeks ago, so following doctor's advice I gave her diarrea specific formula (thicker than normal formula) for about 5 days. Afterwards I reintroduced her usual milk (Aptamil) and she kept cutting down on the quantities and over the last several days has been refusing the bottle very vocally. Also tried changing the milk but that only worked for about 3-4 bottles. She now refuses to even taste the contents of the bottle, so no point changing the milk again.

She is happily feeding on the breast - but the breasts doesn't have enough milk in the afternoon/evening, so this really is a big problem. I have been able to sneak in a bottle or two at night which is my only hope right now... Has anyone experienced similar problems? I spoke to a doctor on the phone who seemed to suggest that DD might be refusing the bottle since she is old enough to understand that she likes breastmilk more...which sound weird - why would a baby put herself on a hunger strike?

zzz - I did not 'put down' your experience. It's very unfair of you to say I did. I was careful to acknowledge that sharing experience is fine, but what is not fine is to extrapolate from personal experience to make a general truth - which is precisely what you did.

This is a genuine question: what am I supposed to do, if I see something posted here that is misleading and wrong and unlikely to help? Say nothing?

Many aspects of your post showed you are not well-informed (eg about charts) and while of course you wanted to help and support the OP, how is telling her (eg) that 'there are two charts' and 'breastfed babies are lighter than ff babies' - both wrong. Bf babies of 3.5 mths are not lighter than ff babies.

I know all this stuff is all over the place and people are told stuff by their HVs and midwives that is wrong, and so it's no one's fault if they hear it.

I understand it's not good to derail a thread, but it's not good to share mis-info either :(

agrumino, sorry about all that....I hope the appt. with the paed yesterday was some help to you. It's not nice when you hear different stuff coming from different sources and sorting out what helps and what doesn't can be a nightmare :(

agrumino, hope you got some joy eventually and that your feeding issues are on the way to being resolved.

If you're struggling to find someone to believe in, choosetiktok: she is extremely knowledgeable and posts often on these boards with sensible, measured, research-based advice.

Hi

My daughter did this at about the same age. I was at my wits end so it became a Daddy battle of the wills. He eventually got her to drink formula by feeding her in her bouncy chair. She wouldn't have bottle from me at all (whether expressed or formula) from him if he cradled her but was quite happy in the end if sat in her chair. It was only a couple of feeds later she had bottles of formula from me if in her chair. Maybe it was easier to disassociate from the breast?

It took a few determined tries and I had to lock myself upstairs not to give in and just bfeed her but we knew it was for the best for us all.

We had quite an upright chair - FP Kick and Play - and used carton formula (Apti) rather than powder til she got the hang of the taste change.

Good luck. I did 50:50 for 6 months and it worked out fine.

Hi everyone, sorry for disappearing... We went yesterday to the paed and tried to show him how DD reacts to the bottle - and guess what - after days of loudly refusing the bottle, she decided to have the milk. So problem is kind of solved, I now wait until she is quite hungry in the evening, and she realises the breasts are empty and then she takes her top-up formula. She used to take a top up at every feed before, but has now decided that little snacks of breastmilk are sufficient during the day, and I only need to top-up the evening.

Regarding weighting before & after feed - it is a last resort, and should only be done in extreme cases. However, if weighting over several days shows that supply is 450-500 ml daily, most probably the supply is not 800 ml. My experience is that the weighting showed suprisingly similar results at the different times of the day - first feed 150, second - 90, and falling to 40-50 ml in the evening. So, I am tempted to believe it. Of course, using an accurate scales is very important.

Regarding breastfeeding - there is a lot of information on how breasts are supposed to work, but it is not always the case. I really believed all the theory and tried hard to make it work for the first six weeks, yet it didn't work. Baby literally sucked for hours, we co-slept, I woke her up at night - all the things one is supposed to do, yet her weight was stable for 3 weeks, and then started falling and we were accepted in the hospital..

We are told that every woman can breastfeed but this is not always the case, some (small?) percentage of women cannot, but even mentioning that seems to be taboo. I am really tired of being told that I haven't tried hard enough, or I haven't checked for a tongue tie... So there is not enough information about the case of not having enough milk, and what to do, and how to top up, and how to do mixed feeding. Doctors seem scared of even suggesting that a woman might not have enough milk, and the woman is left to kind of figure it out on her own, and everyone is waiting for the baby's weight to start dropping. Or at least this is my experience. All the information out there is biased towards breastfeeding. And breast is best, but sometimes it doesn't work so well, and mums are not only left to feel like a failure, but not given much direction on how to do mixed feeding, or bottle feeding...

I just wanted to say - mixed feeding could be quite hard, it has all the negatives sides of breastfeeding (baby feeding often) and of bottle feeding (the total confusion of washing, sterilising, warming bottles). If someone is doing mixed feeding, most probably their milk is not enough. And probably they have tried hard enough to make breastfeeding work. And they really want to get some breastmilk into their baby, and make it last as long as possible. So suggesting that they might try to increase their breastmilk supply could sound quite patronising...

Totally understand why it gets annoying to hear this stuff, agrumino - but people are trying to help, giving up their own time to do so, and they don't know what you have been told, who you have seen, and what investigations you have had, and how many times you have heard the same things!

I have no idea why your baby did no gain weight well (or at all) on bf. Sometimes, this 'mystery' happens with no clear reason - even when a mother is feeding often. It could be the baby has a difficulty in feeding effectively; it could be the mother has a supply issue. Both these reasons can work together.

I agree - mixed feeding can be very hard. Far from being 'the best of both worlds' it is very hard, and has all the negatives of both methods.

I hope things continue to go better.

My DS refused the bottle once he was awake enough to realise the difference. Have you tasted your milk in comparsion to formula? You'd understand why, formula tastes digusting and breastmilk is like manna from heaven. Why don't you just breastfeed, yoursupply will just increase the more you feed. Why are you hung up on amounts? Unless your baby starts seriously losing weight [which they won't] there should be no problems! |I would especially if your baby has had the shits, surely formula caused that anyway.