Feeding nightmares with 6 week old?! help!!

[olivia40404]

We are having an absolute nightmare feeding our 6 week old girl. dr doesn’t seem bothered and the advice we’ve tried so far hasn’t helped at all.

Since she was 2wks old she has been taking between 3-4oz every 3 hours. Lately she has been having issues with what dr thinks is a little silent reflux - not bad enough to treat apparently but just something she will grow out of.

I called NCT feeding support for advice on how to help her and they advised feeding her before she gets too hungry - when she first starts showing signs of being hungry. However she doesn’t show any signs. She just CRIES first. I offer a finger or knuckle, and she’s not that interested, just cries. I try and encourage her to find her hands so she can suck them if she’s hungry, again nothing. She doesn’t turn her head if i stroke her cheek, she doesn’t bob her head on her own hands or my hands. I can not tell for the life of me if she’s hungry or just tired (part of the issue we’ve had is that she can’t sleep any longer than around 30 min stints in the day).

This results in me trying to feed her, she will take 2oz maybe, sometimes only 1oz, and pull away from bottle. I will burp her, try and offer her the bottle again, but she will just scream and cry and push it away. Sometimes she starts bobbing her head on the bottle like she does want it, but screams and cries like she doesn’t want it. It’s so confusing.

She was taking around 25-26oz a day before, now I’m lucky if I can get her to take 20!! She’s 11lbs so should be taking more than 20oz a day, she’s started only having one poo a day, and I’m worried. The other day she only took 17oz! It’s also frustrating that I have no idea when she’s going to be hungry, or when she is actually hungry! The only time I can tell she’s hungry is in the night, when she’s so knackered from not sleeping in the day, she will literally only wake up to have a bottle.

What do I do?? I feel like I’m going crazy and that no matter what I do it’s wrong and she just cries. It’s making me hate being a parent if i’m honest. I’m just at my wits end and have no clue what I should do.

When she comes off after an ounce, does she appear to be pain? Has anyone discussed the possibility of CMPA?

She does seem in pain, like she wants to take more but physically can’t. But other times she can take a full bottle and be quite happy, and smiley and fine afterwards. I imagine if it was CMPA the issues would be more regular and the same at every feed? I will mention it to HV as well as acid reflux when she comes today for 6 week check and see what she thinks.

It might not be after every feed although it's more likely. I have CMPA and my reactions can really vary in severity. Sometimes if I have a reaction I literally can't think of anything else other than the pain and other times it's a lot easier to cope with.

Did any of the information on CMPA sound familiar?

Also, it can be really difficult at this age to work out if it's reflux, CMPA or tongue tie as all of the symptoms can be very similar. Has tongue tie been ruled out?

Have you tried swapping to a comfort formula too?

@olivia40404 - I pretty much wrote the same post as you just did when my DD was of a similar age. Even reading yours is bringing it all back.

I hate to say that not much worked for us other than time.
Carobel in the milk or normal formula mixed with anti-reflux formula helped us marginally.

Things I tried which you could try:
Different bottles
Different teats
Different teat sizes (up and down)
Different brand of milk
Carobel in normal milk
Mixing the same brand of normal milk with the same brand of anti-reflux milk (if the whole bottle is anti-reflux milk I found it too thick for baby to drink)
Feed baby as upright as possible
Gaviscon infant (didnt help at all for us though)
Ranitidine (dont think you can have this anymore but again - didnt work for us)

DD got to 4 months and suddenly was like a different baby. She has never been a massive milk lover even now but all the squirming and upset stopped completely while feeding.

Mine was the same @girlmummy25. She went from fast asleep to extreme panicking from hunger in 0 seconds flat, she was constantly squirming and crying, I couldn’t get her to hold still to breastfeed her - she kept coming off and I couldn’t get her back on - and bottles weren’t much better. We tried all kinds of teats and bottles and formulas without success. And then one day she just got over it. She’s 15 weeks now.

Our doctor thinks her mouth was too shallow when she was smaller and that it was making her gag.

Hi everyone, thank you so much for your replies.
Health visitor thinks it’s not an allergy, she’s pretty sure it’s some acid reflux happening.

It’s comforting to know your babies grew out of it @HarryHarry @girlmummy25. The health visitor told me most of the time they get to around 12 weeks and things start to improve as their digestive systems improve, the muscles that keep stuff down get stronger and the ability to digest lactose gets better. She also said it takes them time to build up lactase (which is what digests the lactose), which I found interesting.

She does have quite a little mouth imo! and she has a slight tongue tie. We’re going to look into trying some smaller bottles and teats to see if she can feed a bit more comfortably, and will just carry on feeding on demand. She’s gained 3oz in 4 days so even though she’s taking less milk it must still be plenty!

Thanks for the reassurance guys, if i remember i will update this post down the line