Hello, first time poster here and desperate for some advice. I apologise that this is so long and rambling - writing has never been my strong point!
I have a 6 month old baby who is breastfed, though we have been trying to get weaning going for the last month or so (a mixture of pureed food from a spoon and baby led weaning with finger foods) with limited success. He was born a big chunky baby on the 75th centile at 40 weeks, and took to breastfeeding really well, or so I thought. His latch has always been good, and I had excellent support from the breastfeeding team in the early days to make sure it was the best he could be.
All was going well until he was around three months old when my health visitor weighed him and we noticed he had dropped to the 25th centile. She reassured me that this was normal as babies often change centiles in the early months before gaining weight more steadily, however she agreed to reweigh him again after two weeks to reassure me. At that next weigh in, he had barely put on any weight at all (a couple of ounces). She reassured me again saying it could just be a blip, the effect of his vaccinations or something, and weighed him again a fortnight later. Again, his weight gain was minimal (3 ounces over two weeks). She did not seem concerned (although was increasingly concerned about my anxiety and PND) because baby's development has otherwise been fine; he is meeting all his milestones and seems like a healthy baby.
In truth, I have been really struggling. Since he was about 12 weeks he has become increasingly fussy when feeding, pulling off and crying, getting increasingly hysterical as time has gone on. Usually night time feeds are better, but during the day, every feed feels like a battle. He would show signs of hunger, I'd put him on then after a minute or two he would cry, get frustrated, pull off, scream, refuse to latch back on... I had to continuously work to settle him over the next 10-20 minutes, then try again and again. Sometimes it might take about 2 hours of trying and crying before he would settle into it and have a good feed.
It has been so so difficult. I haven't really been able to go out (other than to the short play group sessions and baby groups) because if he needed feeding when out it is just impossible. The only time he feeds well is during the night so I have been setting my alarm to wake me up every 3 hours over night to make sure he gets as much milk as possible (he pretty much sleeps through if left to his own devices) which has left me utterly exhausted. Because he doesn't feed very well, my milk supply has been pretty rubbish, so I have had to try and express milk as often as possible through the day and overnight to bring it back up again. My entire life has revolved around feeding, expressing and worrying about his weight gain and I feel utterly neurotic constantly stressing about it all. I just don't seem to be making any progress.
My health visitor is pushing for me to see the GP about my mental health and anxiety but I know there's absolutely no point. Me going on medication for anxiety/ depression is not going to magically make my baby gain weight. She suggested easing back on setting alarms and expressing and battling with him to feed for a week to see how that worked, as she felt that he would regulate his own feeds and probably do better. He didn't. He ended up losing weight and my supply was shot to pieces again so I had to then work extra hard to build it back up again.
I have been to the GP a few times about the weight/ poor feeding, who referred us to the paediatrician after baby dropped down to the 9th centile. The doctor seemed quite happy that he seemed otherwise healthy but suggested I try a dairy free diet to see if that helped. I was completely dairy/ soya free for 8 weeks, but it made absolutely no difference and the paediatrician is confident it isn't anything to do with that after all. My baby has been getting weighed pretty much every 1-2 weeks since he was four months old, each time with only minimal weight gain and a few times he has lost a couple of ounces. I just don't know what to do any more.
I should have said earlier he absolutely refuses a bottle. We have been trying him with expressed milk since he was 7 weeks old (I wanted a Christmas night out!) with absolutely no success. We have tried 6 different bottles, different people giving it to him, me leaving the house, dad and baby leaving the house to try a feed elsewhere, everything we can think of and he has had one ounce of milk at most about three times over the four months we've been trying. Weaning is still at the stage where 90% of what we give him ends up spat out or mashed into the highchair tray. Even when we give him pureed food on a spoon, he pushes most of it back out.
Two weeks ago the paediatrician prescribed him anti-reflux medication in case that was causing the problem. Out of everything we have tried, I actually feel that this has made a massive difference to his feeding. He seems much calmer and more relaxed during feeds, has stopped pulling off and crying. He seems to now feed like a "normal" breastfed baby and seems so much more content in himself. I was feeling really really positive about it all until yesterday when we went back to the hospital for review - he's lost weight again and is now below the 2nd centile. I feel gutted and have been pretty much sitting here in tears since we got home yesterday.
I'm so sorry for this marathon essay and thank you for reading if you managed to get through it all! Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated - or even any words of reassurance from those who have been through something similar! My poor boy is still in some 0-3 month clothes, and the way he's going he'll still be in them until he's two!