15wk old FF baby now refusing bottles!?

[MrsWajs]

Hi,

My problem is basically as it is in the title. DD is 15 weeks old and formula fed and for the last week has started refusing one of her bottles each day.

There's no rhyme or reason to which feed it will be and I never actually find out until the feed starts, she'll take it ok for about a minute and then just starts screaming and gets herself in to such a state that she won't take anymore! The temperature of the milk is always fine. I'm sure it's not a reflux thing as she is fine for all the other feeds. I'm really not sure what else could cause this.

On top of this she has already dropped a centile over the last few weeks 50th down to 25th and I really don't want her to drop down anymore. She takes 6 feeds per day and although she was increasing the volume of these feeds a few weeks ago she has gone back to only taking 4 ozs at a time so with the missed feed each day this means she is only taking around 20 ozs each day which is surely not enough for a baby of her age.

Any suggestions, opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated :)

Teething by any chance? That definitely caused problems for us. Teething gel, Nurofen 10 minutes before the bottle and patience got us through.

All of my children have done this over certain periods. Dd3 is almost 6 months and about 2 months ago, started squealing about 2 mins in to a feed. Again no rhyme or reason to it. I did the same as Paschaelina bit of teething gel, and tried the bottle 10 mins later. The other thing I did was to stand up and give her the bottle, for some reason it works .

My DS also did this and is made me so anxious and frusrtated. Have you tried a different teat on the bottles? DS seemed to be cross because he couldn't get the milk fast enough and so gave up. Also, could be teething. Although he didn't get teeth until 6 months he had all the symptoms early on.

My ds was the same, it was silent reflux , he fed fine during the night and most of the day buy would be a nightmare over t-time and would refuse this feed, going 7 hours without a feed, he also arched his back at this feed and seemed to choke on it, he got worse tho before I realised it was reflux,hopefully it's just teething and it passes tho xxx

Thanks for all your responses. I had thought it might be teething as well but I'm pretty sure she started teething a wee while ago and she wasn't bothered about taking her bottles then, she just used to chew down hard on the teat. She does seem to sometimes choke a little bit on the milk and that's usually when she won't take it but sometimes she has a little choke and takes it fine?!
Weirdly wigglesrock she was a bit better when I stood to feed her on one occasion!
Don't think it should be the teats jenrendo I changed from the first teats to variflow ones ages ago as she was struggling to get enough and falling asleep before she'd taken a good amount. Would I need to change up to the 3m+ ones or should variflow be ok? Contacting HV today for some advice anyway.

My DS is still on the variflow now at 10 months. Might be worth a try though. See what the HV says :)

Update: HV didn't have much more to add to what you lovely ladies have already suggested, except that I could take her in sooner to get weighed if I was worried about weight loss.

Then lo and behold last night she started teat chewing again!! So it bloody is the teeth after all! Feel a bit silly for not realising that sooner, on closer inspection it appears that the bottom left front tooth isn't very far from the surface so it must have been that that's bothering her poor baba!!

HV did suggest that if she isn't happy to take much of her feeds just to let it slide as she might start a negative association with feeding if she's getting upset about it all the time. And to be fair it's not like she's skinny or looks malnourished in the slightest, so I guess it shouldn't do too much harm. Phew, so glad I know what it is now. Bloody hard work this parenting malarkey isn't it!!

I know. We get so stressed if they stop eating. It's such a worry! Glad all is ok :)

glad you have spoken to hv and are feeling happier about it.

if it helps any my dd did this LOTS, she never ever took more than 25oz a day and that was right up until 6mths when we she was weaned, we tried allsorts, different teats, no distractions, with distractions, trying to feed her when asleep etc.

feeding her standing up worked for a while and also to feed her sat in her carseat!

now at 8mths she generally has 16oz ish aday and thats with her having some in her food! but this week she has had 20oz a day, for some reason taking more at each feed, but she has NEVER had more than 5-6oz at a feed.

she has continued to grow fine and is thriving, she loves her solid food, always offer her milk first and i top up her dairy with yog, cheese etc.

she is the complete opposite to my boys who were all big milk lovers, so it really baffled me and stressed me out, i took her to the drs a few times to check for sore throat/ears etc but there was never any reason, maybe teething and recenlty she had a bit of thrush, but that didnt seem to affect her milk intake.

remember all babies are different and try and look at what she has over a week, as long as she has plenty of wet nappies, is pooing, happy and alert she will be getting what she needs :)

Thanks all :)

Am adopting a bit more of a relaxed approach to it all now otherwise I'll go mad!!
She has dropped one feed altogether now but so far seems to be making it up by taking a little bit more with the other 5 so I'm happy enough with that.

Like you say 4madboys she is happy, alert and there are no issues on the nappy front so I'm happy that she's absolutely fine!

Thanks for all your advice/suggestions :)

glad you are happier and more relaxed, it sounds like she was maybe ready to change her routine and have less feeds, which as long as she has dropped a night feed can only be a good thing!