Baby with reflux refusing to breastfeed and bottle feed

[tallla]

Hi All, our little one (who is nearly 8 weeks) has been suffering with reflux for the past 2-3 weeks. I didn't think it was very problematic initially as she seemed to be in no pain and we had plenty of wet and dirty nappies.

Keeping her upright after feeds seems to help her keep most of her feeds down, however slowly over time her refusal to feed has been getting stronger and stronger. She screams when she is brought to the breast, arches her back and kicks her legs about. During the day I have to almost catch her half asleep to get her to latch on and feed (which only last between 5 and 10 mins), otherwise she's having none of it.

She wakes up for night feeds and strangely enough goes onto the breast without much of an issue at night, (touch wood!), generally feeding for about 10 minutes. Her stints of sleep during the night vary from between 1 hour to 4 hours.

She can take milk from a bottle, but has started to refuse that too.

I'm trying to sneak her some boob little and often during the day, and I think she's having enough wet nappies.

She was recently weighed at her baby check and had gone down in weight by one centile over the past month. I'm worried her weight gain will continue to be slow (she's booked in to get weighed again in a few weeks and I've just bought some baby scales from Amazon).

Does anyone have any advice about tackling a refusal to feed for babies with reflux? I hope it's something she'll eventually grow out of but it's so upsetting to see her refuse the breast and get really upset and worked up when I know she's hungry! I'm also worried about the risk of her not getting enough milk to grow as she should

Hi there, I was just wondering how you are getting on?
My boy only ever fed for five mins max really until about 9 months old! Have you tried feeding laying down on your side? Maybe your baby will feel more relaxed laying down a d especially so if you get her just rousing from a nap maybe?
I do remember my son had reflux and we had to hold him upright for an hour every night until he fell asleep. It was a nightmare! Sympathy to you

Thanks for your reply @Horehound , that's interesting that your little one only fed for 5 mins max, I'm sitting here now keeping DD upright after a 7/8 minute feed before I put her down thinking that she surely can't have had enough?! Did your DS feed from both sides every time, or just one?

Thanks for the suggestion of trying different positions, I'll try to keep trying different things . Keeping her upright after all her feeds does seem to be slowly helping.

I wouldngive the doctor phone to ask about reflux medication. Poor wee soul sounds like she is in pain so worth trying something to help.

No only one side at a time until he was a fair but older. Maybe around 7 or 8 months I think. I was always so worried when people said their babies were feeding 30 mins to an hour. I think I maybe just had a tonne of milk that came out quickly and I do remember block feeding (feeding from same breast two feeds in a row) to slow my production down which it did. But even then his feeding time didn't change!
We did go to Dr for reflux medicine and was given gaviscon but honestly it didn't really work. It just acts as a plug sitting at the top of their Timmy and essently hope it's too heavy/thick to come back up. Did t really work for us.

We did have to keep him upright for a fair few months but as they get bigger the valve at the entrance to their tummy gets stronger and it will eventually go away. We noticed any time he had a growth spurt he's had reflux for a couple of days and then go again!!

Have you approached the GP for reflux medication either gaviscon or ranitidine??

Reflux is incredibly painful for little ones so the refusal to feed Would be understandable.

I have had this problem too, it's better when medicated and I'm now diary and soya free as I noticed that her symptoms were worse after I had eaten soya.

Just before Christmas my little one fed for 10-15 minutes during the day in total and about 90+ from late evening and overnight, over the course of 24h she managed to get enough and has actually increased a percentile due to comfort feeding and most of her reflux is silent.

When her reflux is bad but not horrendous I have success feeding lying down, after she has slept –i have to put her in the sling or more recently the pram to get her to sleep the feed as she starts to wake up or after a bath.

At 8 weeks we were put on gaviscon which helps with the sick but made her constipated, we switched to omperazole this worked for a few weeks then stopped then we saw a different doctor who out it up to the max dose and it's working again with gaviscon and lactulose to treat the constipation.

Speak to your doctor about meds ”refusal to fed" seems to be a phrase that gets them to listen, feed whenever they are relatively calm try not to stress if they won't feed. Pop them down to calm down without being surrounded by the smell of milk. I find that moving after a feed to an upright position causes her to be sick but find leaving her in the same position as she had fed it helps. My daughter stopped taking a bottle completely for about 6-8 weeks, we stopped offering for a bit then tried offering it after every feed, I only put an Oz of milk in and wasn't fussed by whether she drank it or not but it got her used to it after a week she took it properly

Keep a symptom and food diary, this was how I found the link between soya and her screaming, previously I was dismissed when I brought up allergies/reactions through breast milk.

Oh I went through the whole CMPA thing btw I forgot to add but the previous poster has reminded me..

I was absolutely convinced and about to stop all dairy etc. went to Dr to confirm and he told me to do not stop having dairy. If you stop then they become much more sensitive to it and allergies will be worse.

My boy is perfectly fine now, no rashes or sickness relating to foods. Some people can be too cautious about it and I got suckered in on here and joining a Facebook group about cmpa.
It's a fad. The Dr told me every few years there's a "thing" mums focus on and this time it's xmoa. Before that it was thrush!

Good point @Horehound, it is rare in breastfed babies and you should be careful about eliminating food groups. We only went down that route as a last resort after ending in hospital. The paediatrician we saw said it was worth considering an allergy as her symptoms weren't being managed by medication alone.
My sister had cmpa in the 80s so I don't know if there is a family link, that was only diagnosed during weaning

Ask for infant gaviscon but watch out for the constipation. If doing a bottle feed you mix straight in but it's more of a pain with breastfeeding - we combi fed so when I was feeding her I had to give it mixed with cool boiled water in a bottle and then fed as normal (gp said it was fine to do this rather than mid feed as DD was already screaming by then). If they're in pain and refusing to feed I'd say that's definitely a sign of needing medication. DD needed it with every feed at 4 months, I was able to reduce it down at 5 months and stopped completely by 6 months - her increasing ability to sit up helped massively I think.

I could have written this post back in the day when mine was little.

Reflux symptoms starting at about 4 weeks old, not improving with any treatment and weight gain really plateauing. He started refusing the breast at about 9 weeks old, arching away, screaming, and refusing to feed etc.

I went to my GP and cried my eyes out - He told me that the picture I was painting was indicative of possible dairy allergy and advised I removed dairy from my diet.

It took a few weeks to see an improvement but it did happen and within 6 weeks I had a different baby.

When he was 1 year old I was told to try and re-introduce dairy back into my diet to see if he still reacted to it and thankfully he was fine.

However, when we tried giving him with any products with milk in he would start reacting again within 48 hours.

He couldn’t actually tolerate dairy until he was over 2.5 years old.

Obviously I’m not saying this is the problem with your baby....it’s just something to keep in mind if nothing improves.

Thank you so much for all of your comments and advice, it's really helpful. Really sorry for my slow response, homeschooling during lockdown is keeping me busy!

Keeping my DD upright seems to be having a positive cumulative effect and her reflux seems to be getting better and better as the days go by. I'm going to keep my eye on a correlation between her reflux and a growth spurt!

She still seems to be refusing the breast relatively frequently which I'm finding a bit upsetting, but she is taking a bottle without issue now. I'm trying to express as much as I can to give her breast milk from a bottle. She's having one formula bottle a day at the moment.

Now she seems happy feeding from a bottle I'm going to keep an eye on how things go weight wise and with how comfortable she seems generally. If things don't continue to improve I'll head to the GP to discuss medication and/or cutting dairy/ other food groups.

Thanks so much again everyone

@tallla how are you getting on? I have a 12 week old who is refusing BF and sometimes bottles too and am finding it soul destroying

[quote Mommaplaysthebanjo]@tallla how are you getting on? I have a 12 week old who is refusing BF and sometimes bottles too and am finding it soul destroying [/quote]
Hi @Mommaplaysthebanjo

Have a google for Rowena Bennett and feeding aversion 🤗💐 It might ring some bells for you x