Fussy / Difficult Formula Fed Baby

[BoudiccasHare]

Hi all, looking for some advice as I'm not sure what to try!

My DD is 8 weeks old this coming Thursday and was 9lbs at birth, now oer 13lbs. She has always been easy to feed, despite a little reflux which caused her to throw up quite a few feeds. We were prescribed gaviscon and used this in conjunction with infacol and that seemed to really help.

Thursday of last week she started to really fuss mid one of her evening feeds. She was thrashing her head about, refusing the bottle and then really crying because she was hungry. She was also suddenly a nightmare to wind, and seemed genuinely to struggle to get the wind up. The Friday she was constipated and so we increased her water intake, and the hesitance and struggling with feeds continue. Feeds were now taking upwards of an hour, whereas before she would take 7 - 8oz in about a half hour, with gaps to wind. Saturday and Sunday much the same but the constipation eased.

Monday we took her to the doctors as we were concerned that nothing seemed to be no better. The doctor prescribed ranitidine and said he thought that acid was coming up with wind and burning her throat, and this was why she cried and was hesitant with feeding.

This seems not to have improved much - feeds are a struggle and stressful for both me and her. She is definitely hungry and wants to eat but fusses, cries, thrashes about and gets more and more frustrated. The amounts that she wants to take also fluctuates massively - sometimes she wants a 2oz feed, other times she will drain a full bottle and cry for more.

Could anyone suggest anything I can do to help her? We've got her on anti-colic bottles and veriflow teats already. I don't want feeds to continue to be a struggle for her or me, so any help or advice would be gratefully received.

Have you tried an anti reflux formula and have you thought it might be cow's milk protein allergy?

We haven't tried an anti reflux formula - we were worried that this was something that the HV / GP needed to suggest rather than something we could just pick up and try. That may be ignorance on my part. Would it be worth a try?

I have mentioned an allergy / intolerance and the HV / GP didn't think it was that as she has only just started to struggle very recently, and there has been no other signs to suggest.

Go up a teat size - this is typical behaviour for that.

7-8oz is a massive amount for an 8 week old - I'm amazed at a 2 month old having a stomach with that capacity.

My 91st centile chunk was on 4-5oz bottles until about 16 weeks. She fed 2 hourly in the daytime though.

Are you mistaking tired signs for hunger signs?

A newborn (up to about 3 months) sleeps most of the time. Awake time between one nap and the next night might be only 20-40 minutes, all through the daytime. An over-tired baby will show signs exactly the same as hunger - uncontrollable screaming, back arching, thrashing around, angry red-faced crying.

The first thing I would think of if baby refused a feed would be sleep time.

Next - are you confusing the need to comfort suck with hunger? Babies take comfort from sucking and since bottle fed babies can't comfort suck the nipple, a dummy may help.

Your huge volumes of milk in bottles might also be due to the baby wanting to suck, but not necessarily feed. Likewise vomiting afterwards.

Try putting baby in something with rhythmic movement (bouncy chair for example) with a dummy half an hour or so after the last wake up.

This might mean baby literally just wakes, is fed immediately, wind and quick cuddle then straight back to sleep. Wake up and repeat the whole cycle. Over and over again all day long, every day.

isthistoonosy - she is already on variflow teats, would it help to use a different size irrespective of this?

FATEdestiny - my LO has been weighed by the GP and HV and she is on the 95th percentile (has been since birth) for weight but no one has suggested that we are overfeeding in the slightest as she isn't gaining a ridiculous amount of weight per weigh in. We don't force milk into her and we stop when she shows signs of not wanting the bottle anymore. She also has a dummy which she is very happy with so I am fairly confident that I am not mistaking tired cries for hungry cries.

We have a (sort of) routine through the day that she has fallen into which is feed, short cuddle and play then nap until next feed, and she feeds every 3 hours until the last feed at 10. Mostly she sleeps through the night, but sometimes wakes for a feed at 4 - 5am. I have been lead by her needs (hunger, what she wants to take) and our HV has not suggested concerns that she is overfed / not napping enough so I am hoping I am doing right by her.

Mine never got on with variflow. I was using tommy tippee and switched to the second size around 8 weeks but should have prob changed a week or so earlier. Take it easy with the bottle the first couple of feeds / days as the increased speed will take a little getting use to, and maybe don't use it for night feeds for the first couple of days,