Sudden fussiness and green poos

[blueberrypudding]

My 11 week old DD has suddenly (in the last few days) started screaming and thrashing on the boob, sometimes refusing one entirely, and doing bright green poos.

She latches on and then does a few sucks and then pulls off screaming. I have always had fast letdown and she's never really had a huge issue with it, used to just pull off or choke and I'd catch it in a muslin. When I keep persisting she latches back on and does the same thing, off and on and off again until she finally refuses to latch.

She's recently gone from feeding every hour to every three hours - could this be the issue? I'm getting concerned as if she's only feeding every three hours and not feeding properly she might not be getting enough!

[PetaPipa]

That sounds stressful, poor you :-( I'm not sure what to advise, but I think green poo can be due to the baby getting too much of the thin fore-milk rather than.the hind-milk that comes at the end of a feed. This would happen if she is having lots of short feeds with not much gap between them, but you say she is going several hours between feeds?

[blueberrypudding]

Yes, quite a few hours. She's refused everything including formula today! She had a stealth feed at 7am and then didn't take anything again till 3pm. She would root and cry and then when I tried to feed her with both the breast and the bottle and even a syringe she would scream and arch her back. At 3 her dad finally managed to get an ounce of EBM down her by pouring it into her mouth from a cup. She gulped it down so she was clearly starving, but then wouldn't take anymore!

She's not had a single wet nappy since morning. :(

Going to take her into A&E in a bit!

[CatsCantFlyFast]

Blueberry poor you. Hope everything is ok x

[elvislives2012]

Well done, sounds the best plan. Let us know how u get on. Hope you're ok xx

[PetaPipa]

Any news op? Hope you and DD are ok.

[blueberrypudding]

Hi all, thanks for the advice and the concern!

Doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with DD - they wanted to do a urine sample but she just wouldn't wee even after six hours in the hospital. (Not surprised, she hadn't had a wet nappy all day and was barely feeding.)

They said it was probably a virus and we'd just have to wait it out. We had been forcefeeding her EBM using a sippy cup as that was the only thing she'd take in the end (she started rejecting formula in the bottle too).

We had some progress last night/this morning. She started taking EBM from the bottle again at normal times, so if it was a virus she was clearly on the mend. She still wouldn't go on the breast. We ended up giving her EBM cold out of the fridge, she wouldn't really like it but it took the edge off her hunger, I then offered the breast and she'd take it after a few goes on the cold bottle while I repeated, "Now isn't that better? You've got it nice and warm!"

Baby steps, but hopefully we'll get there. She's still really fussy and will only go on one side after lots of coaxing so I've had to continue expressing from the other. I'm hoping after a while she'll get over the psychological barrier and be back to normal nursing.

[PetaPipa]

Aw, I'm glad things are getting better. My ds is the same age, and also keeps fussing at the breast when he didn't used to (although nothing so extreme!), so maybe it is a normal phase combined with a virus. Good luck with the feeding, and I hope things are back to normal soon.

[elvislives2012]

Glad u got her checked, had been wondering how you were. Can u get to a group this week? Midnight help to see others?

[blueberrypudding]

DD seems to be slowly getting back to normal - she's still fussy on the breast but is now taking it!

She's also developed a weird habit of wanting me to walk around while feeding her, which is very bizarre, but I'm ecstatic that she's even feeding again so I'm not going to question it.

My mum told me today that she "honestly thinks I should switch to formula because I'm causing baby stress". :(

[elvislives2012]

It'll be a stage and in a few days she'll be better. I used to give my DD a week to get better when I was struggling.... I managed 15 months of bfing
You're doing great, by offering her boob she's being comforted not stressed xxxx