Baby screaming at the first sight of boob or bottle

[Peridotty]

Hi! Bit of background info. My baby is 8 weeks old. She has always been a difficult and fussy feeder. She has reflux issues as well and spits up sometimes. She is breastfed 90% of the time but she will also take expressed breastmilk too from a bottle when she hasn’t had enough from the boob. When she is hungry, my baby will look for boob and then when i offer it to her start crying or screaming? I change positions to see if it’s that but she still cries. I let her find the boob herself and she is calm up to the point she sees the boob and then starts crying again! To calm her down, I will keep her upright and bounce her. When I try putting her on the boob again she starts crying again. This doesn’t happen at night or when she is sleepy.
This also happens with the bottle. She will start to cry and fuss at the sight of the bottle and this gets worse. After a while of crying though she will latch on furiously and then cry as she drinks from the bottle and end up delatching and screaming some more. She will drink the whole bottle (30ml) but she drinks it frantically and gulps loads of air.

Any help appreciated! Thank you! X

Oh and this fussiness happens every single time with the bottle but about 20% of the time with the boob.

And I’m asking about the crying BEFORE she has even had anything to drink. She is very calm until she sees the bottle and it hasn’t touched her mouth yet.

How often do you feed her?

My first thought is tongue-tie.

During the day I have to feed her every 1.5-2 hours. And at night every 3 hours.

Oh and sometimes when she cries like that she is not hungry, just sleepy and wants to be bounced to sleep.

Poor thing, could it be GERD? Hope you get it sorted x

I think she may need to feed more often. My DS was like this too and so I just kept offering him the boob when he was awake.

My DS had tongue tie but your first and only symptom isn’t crying at 8 weeks - by that time the babies usually get used to the lower milk supply (and causing you pain) and will not be achieving weight milestones.

If she has reflux, it might be GERD. She is associating the boob or bottle with the reflux pain poor baby.

Have you had any advice regarding the reflux?
Bouncing is not good. Swaying and gentle back patting best with baby on shoulder.
Some babies react to mums diet affecting breast milk. My one DD with GERD was triggered if I ate or drank anything acidic- juice, milk, coffee, tea, or ate any spices or citrus. I know the diet idea is anecdotal, there is not scientific study on it, but I kept a food journal and saw a clearvlink. When I cut acidic things from my diet, her GERD improved significantly.
Also, I had a wedge that I put under her cot mattress so she was sleeping on a slight incline. This helped prevent the reflux while sleeping/lying down.

Thank you for the replies! I do think she has GERD. She has had some forceful spit up before which smelled like stomach acid. She also arches her back when drinking from the bottle and squirms like crazy. She feeds about 14 times a day.
It could be that she associates the pain with the bottle or boob. :-( She drinks fine if she doesn’t see them (I.e. when she has her eyes closed and sleepy). This only happens when she is awake.
We are careful not to bounce her hard, just v gently because she has thrown up before

Oh and she has gained more weight than expected which is good so I’m not too worried that she is not eating enough. She also has wet and dirty nappies frequently too.

The feed frequency sound about right to me too OP and you’re quite right that weight gain means she is definitely eating enough.

On her arching her back on bottle, it may mean she needs to be burped/winded midway during a feed?

I’d go to GP too to get her assessed and diagnosed. My DD with GERD was 18yrs ago and they may have something new to help you more than I had back in 2002.

With GERD does she always have to spit up and vomit? She actually spits up infrequently (once every day) and when she does it’s only a small amount. She has forcefully spat up 3x in her life. My husband doesn’t think it’s GERD and we spoke to a paediatrician before who thinks it’s just regular reflux.
I’m also worried about the diagnostic tests for GERD eg the barium swallows etc

See if they will give you some gaviscon

No, my DD did not spit up every feed, but it was most feeds. The vomit was also not frequent but when it happened it was a lot, pretty much all she’d eaten and it was projectile vomit- shooting out a good 2metres.

Lots of fussiness and pain after eating. Especially night feeds when you put her back to bed afterwards.

They first say to me that the baby has GER and gave me advice, or things to help. When that didn’t work, only then did they think about testing for GERD.

I don’t know what threshold is for GERD compared to regular reflux? So, that’s why recommend asking doctor, I said GP, but since you have a paediatrician, ask them to review history and see what can help.

Hm. On tests, my paediatrician did do chest xrays and the barium is just this liquid they mix with a bottle so the xrays can see better in the gi tract. It was the X-rays that confirmed the GERD for my DD.

It was after GERD test and diagnosis that I tried my food journal idea because I was desperate to figure out what was causing it to be so bad for my DD.

Thank you for your replies!
@PlanDeRaccordement so what was the treatment for your baby? Were you worried about the xrays?

I just tried another bottle but she arched her back away from it and batted it away. Do you think she just prefers the breast?

Yes, I think you are spot on, she probably prefers the breast. All my babies did too which is why I had to leave the house and have DH do all bottle feeds. Babies also swallow less air on the breast which results in less reflux. So she’s a clever baby too.

No, was not worried about the X-ray. It’s so quick and they put a lead vest on me and let me hold her on the table thingy while they did it. They used a small one on an arm like you see in a dentist office.

But as I said this was 18yrs ago so I am positive there are more treatment options available now. I don’t know what they are, but if anything can give them relief it has to be worth considering.

I just realised thinking about my DD that she liked small and frequent feeds opposed to larger more infrequent feeds. I think it made it easier for her to digest. This has continued all through childhood and even now as an adult she will eat many small mini meals a day. We always called her our Fēngniǎo (hummingbird). Little and often.

@PlanDeRaccordement
Haha wow you had to leave the house for your husband to do the bottle feeds! My husband is now doing the bottle feeds and she cries a little bit less but too early to tell.
She seems calmer today. I think feeding her in a darkened bedroom seems to help. And keeping her upright after feeding stops her crying which is good.
Your nickname is so cute! Hummingbird. I love it!