16 week old refusing to feed - does he hate breastfeeding, has he reflux ????

[Trimum2]

My LO is 16 weeks. need some help!

1. Refusing to feed much during the day.

Despite no breakfast, he is taking very little at 10.30-11.00, post lunchtime and even no much at tea time, I think. He feeds well for first 4-5 mins then comes off the breast. Then lots of crying / arching /unsettled behaviour.

After winding or attempting to..... Have tried to put him back on breast but that just makes him cry harder and he pulls back with all his might. (don?t want to try putting him on again and again with him crying so hard as don't want to give him aversion to it).

Is refusing to go back on the breast common? and does it mean anything??

Sometimes swapping sides seems to help and he begins again before same thing happening again. I have ended up swapping sides even if I have only fed from one side for less than 5 mins.

• He is definitely still hungry because I had topped him up then and he gobbles down at least 3 oz .
• Plus I have had him weighed today and although on the 50th centile he has lost weight over the past 3 weeks which ties in with this bizarre behaviour (at least its not my imgaination he is not feeding properly)
• Sometimes I've thought that its because he is frustrated because breasts empty/low but the last few days they have been quite full and had to express to relieve the pressure. Then thought... well at least he will be hungry next feed only for the same thing to happen again!
• Am thinking it could be silent reflux as there is the arching of the back and then he starts off the crying. Plus it seems like something comes back up because he moves his tongue as if he is tasting something. He also shoves both his fists in his mouth mid feed. Also he drools a lot (could be start of teething but also seems to be listed as reflux symptom)
• or maybe he just hates bfeeding and wants bottles?

Overall - feeds are taking 50 mins or so with only about 10 mins of actually feeding (if even that)

2. Nighttime munching means no breakfast. BF at 6-ish and then 3-4oz of EBM top up as he heads to bed around 7.30 or so. Then dream feed of 6oz ish of EBM. Then... seems to feed A LOT from 4am to 6am. Then takes virtually no breakfast. 5 mins max.

• I am puzzled that none of the day time refusal behaviour happens with bottles in the first part of the night.
• Also puzzled that he feeds happily from 4am to 6am on the breast. Does this rule out reflux as the cause of his day time problems?
• As a result of huge feed from 4am-6am he is virtually refusing breakfast. Obviously, I would prefer to try and get him to eat breakfast rather than feed at 4am and drop his breakfast feed. Should I be trying not to feed him at night?

Sorry for the long post. But I am feeling very stressed by his refusal feed properly and am worried that my milk production will start to go down as a result. And have just had to deal with mastitis due to his not eating very much. Thanks

Unfortunately the doc doesnt have your LO as from what you say "give when needed" seems to be all the time. If you cant give it before try after a feed even a little might help keep it down a bit.

Do you have to return to the consultant or do you have a prescription for Zantac. I would be tempted to go for it (but is my completely personal feeling after trying both) having had a distressed infant to comfort.

I was given conflicting advice about Gaviscon - doctors didn't agree whether it should be given before or after a feed. Personally, I could never understand the advice to give it before the feed. Have you ever seen what it does to a glass of water? As I understand it, it's supposed to form almost a 'raft' of gel on top of the stomach contents to stop them from coming back up. So I just don't see how it will work if the stomach is empty when you first give it. Anyway...

if you don't think it's working then I wouldn't persist for too long.

I started weaning ds2 at 6 months but then he went into hosp with heart failure - another thing they don't like to tell you is that meds to reduce the acidity of the stomach actually increase your child's susceptibility to infection. so watch out for that. he started eating some solids off my plate while still in hospital and overall weaned pretty well. I found that he far preferred finger foods so he could control what he was eating himself, so we soon moved off what I call 'mush'. He only ate little bits at any one time but was pretty open to new tastes. I didn't pressure him as I thought he was the best judge of what he could manage. We basically did 'baby led weaning' which is now considered the best approach, for any baby. Up to at least 1 yr milk is supposed to be the main source of nutrition in any case, any other food is seen as 'supplementary'.

I remember reading about calcium absorption, and then forgot it again, so thanks for reminding me. We have many ways of boosting calcium intake in our house because of ds1's cow's milk intolerance - we use calcium fortified rice milk on cereal, eat lots of hoummous, bread, water, sardines etc! I hope ds2 is okay but maybe I shall look into that again.

I completely agree with your appraisal, davidsmom, I had concerns about the meds but just decided it was worth the risk because the alternative was so terrible. To have a child in pain a great deal of the time, constantly screaming and rarely able to sleep, unable to feed because it hurt him and therefore not growing... I hope if he has any problems with his bones later on he will understand my decision.

He's a good eater now, at 3 years, and although he's on the small side he's not obviously so. You wouldn't know what he'd been through, so I'm pretty pleased with the way things turned out although it was rather hellish while we were going through it.

Best of luck to both of you

p.s. if you search through some of my old messages about reflux you will probably find some good weblinks. I'm on a new laptop so I don't have them bookmarked, but there's lots of info out there.

Yes it is the gastrointestinal type of infections so am vv careful with sterilising things (most of the time)

I had looked into the baby led weaning but have put it on hold for the moment until next week. Sounds very sensible but I am still having problems with his BFg so might be difficult to carry on with sufficient supply. Will probably try "mush" for a bit.

Will try and find your old postings about reflux.

Thanks

Sorry Trimum2 for hijacking your thread!