PLEASE HELP formula feeding problems

[Thornola]

Hi I'm new to all this and could really use any advice from more experienced mums. My 14 week old daughter really struggles to feed from a bottle.... loads of milk leaks out of her mouth... I measured and she's losing about 3 ozs of milk from every 8 oz feed. I've tried avent bottles and all teat sizes, DR Browns and all teats, Tommee Tippee Healthcheck variflow, Tommee Tippee Closer to nature. Have changed feeding position as well. Am starting to worry now as her weight is dropping has gone from 98th to under 50th centile. My older son was breast and bottle fed with no problems so am pretty sure its nothing I'm doing wrong!! Any tips?

Hello. I can't help I'm afraid but I wanted to let you know I'd read your post. The only thing I thought of is possible tongue tie, but I'm a bit obsessed by that and it's probably nothing of the sort. I hope someone else has some ideas.

Could the flow be too fast? good luck

Why not go and see your health visitor and if you can, take a small bottle along with you so that you can show her what your dd is drinking like. You've probably already done this, but have you tried variflow teats?

does it leak out of her mouth during the entire feed or just at the end? when mine isn't hungry anymore he sucks a few times without swallowing and it all just runs back out of his mouth.

just curious -- how did you manage to measure that?

Link to tongue-tie info here. See the paragraph on bottle feeding where it mentions inefficient leaky feeding despite parents trying every teat under the sun.

Thorn I think it sound like the flow may be too much for her, DH had the same problem and all the bottle swapping and changing made her worse. It will settle down but I found Tommee T no1 flow really helped and also just go really slowly with her - feed her in a quiet place with no distractions and try to relax as you feed her, stop and start if need be, be really patient. Good luck.

Thanks very much for all your advice. Have tried variflow makes no difference. Dont think its the flow as slow flow teats still cause lots of spillage but she gets frustrated as she cant feed fast enough. Took her to GP yesterday who said to try a cup with a spout. He checked her mouth and can't see any reason why she's struggling so not tongue tied. Tried a cup and she just screamed and screamed. I measured the milk loss by weighing a wet bib and then a dry one and comparing the two - the difference in weight = liquid on bib. I then wet the dry bib the same amount of milk and compared the wetness to double check!! How sad am I!!!!!! GP said not to worry unless she starts losing weight so am trying to relax a bit and maybe just accept she's a messy little madam!!!

So glad i came accross this post. my 5 week old appears to be consuming a ridiculous amount of formula- like 6oz every 3-4 hours, and sometimes cant even stretch two hours between feeds- but i do notice lots of lost milk on bib and clothes, always really soaked and milk constantly dribbling out of mouth throughout whole feed. Looked at the tongue tie info and will definately have this checked out. she couldnt latch on effectively to breast feed and lost weght so that is why i switched to bottles and she is also very colicky and windy, really hard to put down and wont lie on her back for most of her naps. her weight is ok so far but that is probably because i have been feeding her on demand and much more than the recommended amount for her weight!
good idea for weighing bib by the way- might try that too.
Hope she isnt tongue tied but will not feel so worried about her milk consumption if i can discount an ounce or so as spillage. Just thought this was normal.

I had this problem with bottle-feeding. I did have a DS with a tongue tie - but really worried like you that he wasn't getting enough milk. My experience was that it did get better with time. I stuck with Avent, a small size teat and bought new teats (I had been using old ones that I discovered had decayed). I also sat my DS up a bit when feeding. 3 oz does sound a lot but if no tongue tie, maybe just taking a while for her to get to grips with sucking?

The best bottles for my son are MAM bottles. They are great. The other one I think works good is the NUK bottle. They have one that is similar to the breast and it suctions air tight and depending on how hard they suck determines how much formula comes out