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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Four month old - BF suddenly a nightmare

8 replies

Tricycletops · 19/08/2017 18:11

DC2 is 18 weeks and has been EBF (with the odd bottle of expressed milk) since birth. Initially feeding went brilliantly, with him latching really well and gaining weight quickly. However, since 14 weeks he's been getting progressively more and more awkward to feed. He'll latch on, take two or three mouthfuls, unlatch, scream, scratch me, push away and repeat. It's now impossible to get him to feed for more than about 8 minutes, and he's stopped gaining weight - in four weeks he's dropped from the 25th centile to below the 2nd, and some weeks has lost weight. I've taken him to the local NHS breastfeeding clinic a few times, and his latch and position has been judged ok. They also looked at his tongue and he's apparently not tongue tied. However nobody has offered me any practical help with the issues. The GP thought possible reflux and has put him on ranitidine, but it's not making much difference. The HV has suggested block feeding (which he won't tolerate, as he'll only do more than 5 minutes if he can have both sides) and compression which has made no difference. I'm as confident as I can be that supply is not the issue - when he kicks off there is clearly still milk there, and I've been expressing to maintain it.

Frankly I'm at the end of my tether and considering giving up - I was expecting that by now it would have got easier, and instead it's more difficult every day. I don't want to though, and was wondering if anybody could suggest anything else I can try?

OP posts:
LapinR0se · 19/08/2017 19:50

Oh you poor thing it sounds very stressful. Clearly something is going on that the baby doesn't like. Any signs of earache or sore throat that could be painful when he drinks?

INeedNewShoes · 19/08/2017 22:14

It could be worth trying giving him a dose of Teetha before he feeds just in case its teething pain.

Tricycletops · 21/08/2017 15:16

Thanks both. I've tried him with teething gel but it doesn't seem to help much. However I'm now wondering if he has an upper lip tie. I've been looking at pictures of good latches slightly obsessively and he isn't curling his top lip back at all, and when I try to roll it back he screams as if he's in pain. So I will try to get that looked at.

OP posts:
Kausi · 22/08/2017 23:37

Have you ruled out thrush? What you're describing sounds a lot like what a few of my friends experienced with their babies and that's what it turned out to be.

mowglik · 30/08/2017 21:53

My 5 month old is the same and has been like this for a month and a half. It's really difficult feeding him sometimes. We do the same dance everytime - I latch him on, he takes a few sucks then has a kick about and a moan, so I put his dummy in to settle him or shush him so he stays on - do this on repeat about 3/4 times until milk comes in then he will feed for a few minutes. I then swap between boobs twice until he's satisfied

When he started doing this I tried anbesol and that really helped but now I feel like he's just impatient for let down and wants milk now!

So try anbesol, and or shushing, distraction to keep him on until let down if that's the issue.

Utini · 30/08/2017 21:58

My DD was like this at a similar age. I found she'd feed much better if I stood up or walked around. Luckily she was feeding overnight while lying down, but for weeks I did nearly every daytime feed standing. We got past it, still no idea what the problem was.

Tricycletops · 12/09/2017 00:03

In case anybody comes across this in a search, nipple shields saved the day! No idea why - I only bother bought them as I wanted to try absolutely everything before I gave up - but he will now feed for much longer and is growing again. We did have to bring in one bottle a day as he'd lost so much weight, but I'm actually quite happy with that now as it gives a bit of flexibility.

OP posts:
Chocarocker · 12/09/2017 00:17

My LG was bottle fed but we had a similar problem starting at 5 weeks where she would start to feed them scream and pull away from teat and also stopped gaining weight. It turned out that she had severe reflux and cows milk protein intolerance and didn't improve until she had omeprazole for reflux and went dairy free.

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