Any ideas to encourage my FF DD to eat more?

[purrpurr]

DD has fallen off her growth line in her red book and my Health Visitor is really strongly insisting that we realise she is at an age where she really needs the volume of formula to grow (she's 12 weeks). Colour me surprised, I thought babies just needed oxygen? They need food AS WELL? Shite. We've been trying to get her to eat more every single minute of every single day since she was 1 week old and had dropped a bit too far since leaving hospital. My nerves are shredded. In the darker moments I almost wish someone would adopt DD as someone with half a brain would obviously be able to get my DD to eat more. I'm just an idiot.

Please please give me some ideas to try as, bitter sarcasm aside, this is a really worrying (terrifying, almost) problem. Her weight gain has really slowed down.

So far we've tried:

• Feeding on demand - worked for the first 4 weeks, she was taking around 20 - 25oz a day / 600 - 750ml, she just seemed to guzzle it, loved the stuff, some days she'd have up to 28oz. Feeding was never a problem. Until colic started. The amounts she would eat gradually fell and now she has 21oz max, often just 20oz.

• Feeding to a schedule - we've tried feeding every three hours, this stopped her wanting little bits here and there and she will eat a lot more in one sitting now than ever before - used to only manage 3oz per feed, now can sometimes eat 6oz - however she does NOT like feeding in the morning, she will have 3oz at a push and then that's it til midday. Then it's a bit hit and miss in the afternoon. The fact that she is not offered food as much I think just means she eats less, but then after trying a schedule and it failing we tried to go back to demand feeding but she wasn't fussed at all.

• Changing bottles and teat sizes - we have tried Avent and Tommy Tippee, would another brand help her appetite? Struggling to see how?

• Different types of formula - we're currently trying Cow & Gate instead of Aptamil but no difference, is there a super duper tasty formula out there that could persuade her to eat?

• Are there any feeding positions I could try? Has changing position helped anyone?

And lastly, is it possible that our DD has a smaller appetite? Or am I just fooling myself to avoid the nightmare of worrying myself to death because of a growth chart?

purr, healthy babies can fall through two centile spaces (eg from 50th to 9th) without it being a problem. Falling of the line is not normally regarded as a problem - it's well within normal to do this. What are the details of her weight and growth?

At birth she was 8lb 4oz. She is now 11 10. From the chart she was originally (only for the first measurement of 8 4) plotted at the start of the 75th line, by 6 weeks she was closer to the 50th line, at 8 weeks she'd dropped beneath it, at 10 weeks no drop, at 12 weeks she is now resting on the 25th line. In the last three weeks she has gained 12oz. The health visitor wants her weight to go up from the 25th line at her next weigh in, which I believe will mean she needs to be 12lb 5oz in two weeks, requiring a gain of 9lb.

God I've got a headache already.

One really frustrating thing is my DD has to be really hungry before she displays hungry cues. I just tried feeding her out of quiet desperation and she happily had just over 3oz / 90ml. I feel like I'm failing her.

HVs aren't always right. Can you get a second opinion?

Is DD alert and happy most of the time? Is she meeting developmental milestones etc? Plenty of wet and dirty nappies? You're offering more but she doesn't want it? Then she's probably perfectly fine. It's pretty normal for their weight gain to slow down at 3-4 months anyway.

Hang on, also, their birth weight isn't supposed to be counted as their start point any more. This is now thought to be more to do with the mother's size, fluid intake and gestation than the baby's natural growth curve.

There should be a gap between birth and 2 weeks in your red book - 2 weeks is supposed to be the starting point, to account for these differences at birth. What centile was she on then? If she went down to the 50th by 6 weeks then I'd wager that's closer to her natural place on the chart than the 75th which she was born on.

She sounds within normal - I agree, a second opinion would help.

Even when babies have gone through two centile spaces or more, the majority of them are fine. In most areas and with most HCPs following good ptactice, the two centile spaces thing is a trigger to check the health and development of the baby, and to make sure the family is not doing anything daft which would lead to poor weight gain. Once those things check out ok - ie the baby is healthy and the family is sensible and caring, which you clearly are - then the usual thing is to accept that the baby is the way he/she is and there's nothing wrong.

So - ask to see another HV and see what it is they are concerned about.

Practical advice is would try moving up a test size if you haven't yet. Cheaper than getting new bottles.
I would also try to keep a note of when she's giving hunger signs and once I knew her schedule feed 30 mins before really hungry.

My DD was prem and a nightmare to feed so feel for you. It gets easier. The h v gave me same advice. I was like you. Thanks for the feeding tip. I thought shed cook herself dinner!

Reminds me of my daughter, who's now twenty one weeks. We tried avent and tommee tippee bottles to, as well as everything else we could think of. In the end we got a cheap bottle from the pound shop. Turns out she doesn't like anything boob shaped, whether it's a teat or an actual boob. Could be worth trying, as you're only a pound out of pocket if it doesn't work. Good luck, and try not to panic too much about it (although I well remember that's easier said than done).

stormy do you remember if the bottle you got had a particular brand?

tiktok and yoni How do I go about getting a second opinion without... I don't know... Getting in trouble? The HV didn't even look at my DD, just took the weight measurement off the scales and looked at the chart, shouldn't she be looking at DD to see if there are any signs of anything to worry about?

arms do you remember what your baby's feeding schedule was like? My DD hardly eats in the morning which means its so difficult to almost have to shoehorn formula into her in the remaining hours of the day. I am starting to identify hungry times but she still seems to randomise when she will eat and I'm practically following her around with a bottle, on the off chance. I do find that if she gets really hungry she will take a bucketload - I get the feeling this is because it takes a while for the fullness signal to fire so she eats more than she would have done. But there's no real rhyme or reason to it, I keep trying to find patterns and there just aren't any.

We've already increased the teat sizes, we're on day 2 of cow and gate milk with no particularly noticeable increase in intake. We're going to try to get some Mam bottles and see how we go on those.

Weds - total 800ml - this was a really good day, fed her on a mix of Aptamil ready made and then after seeing the HV we started her on Cow and Gate ready made
Thurs - total 730ml - could have slapped myself, twice, as the two bottles I prepared for night feeds (one for bedtime and one for 3am) she drained as if they were nothing, if I'd put more in the bottles she probably would have had that as well, as it was I took her to the kitchen with me at 4am and made a bottle but I'd missed the window of opportunity by then and she wasn't interested anymore. Not making that mistake tonight.

So far today we're on 170ml after two tiny feeds, she doesn't do food in the morning, I wish she did. Actually I wish there was a magic cure to this. Poor beanpole baby.

So just tried feeding DD again, kind of on a whim but sometimes she is hungry and doesn't show it. Or maybe she does and I'm just shite. She started crying, arching her back, unfortunately this is quite normal. I decided to put her into her most calm position, which is on her back on my legs with her head on my knees. Then on a whim (I have a lot of whims) I decided to see if she would take the bottle - she did. Happily. And drank 110ml.

I'm completely lost now. There was no real indication she was hungry and she'd nearly been screaming when offered the bottle in a normal feeding position. None of this makes any sense. I'll happily feed her on my knees if that is what it takes but I wish I knew why? If anyone is reading this, do they have any ideas?

Can't remember what it said on the label. We tried a few different cheap ones, all with slightly different tears, but all in the classic shape rather than mimicking the breast.

My 11 wo won't take more than 2-3 oz at a time and she's dropping off the line, but the charts are measured on healthy breast fed babies which gain weight quicker in the first 3 months than ff babies, if she's still gaining weight every week then I shouldn't worry, babies are quite similar to us, sometimes we want a snack other times we fancy a binge, she's maybe just a baby with a small appetite.