I hope someone can share their experience.
My DD is 19 weeks old. When she was born she had to have her airways suctioned due to meconium aspiration, and was then in NICU (not intubated but with oxygen support and tube fed) for a week.
We couldn't establish breastfeeding although we tried, with a shield it worked a few times but she was given formula as well. I was encouraged to pump which I did from day one and have continued to do. She was then fed this milk via the tube and later the bottle.
Eventually once home, breastfeeding continued to be challenging so we moved to bottle feeding expressed milk with occasional formula top up.
DD has never been a great feeder. In the early weeks I suspected silent reflux but the HV and GP said these were just phases so it was never medicated or discussed further.
Weight wise she was born on the 25th centile, was briefly on the 50th at around 6 weeks, then down to the 25th again.
She feeds little and often. She will often start drinking, then arch her back or start crying and fussing and bat the bottle away or turn her head. Admittedly in desperation I've tried to persist finishing the bottle at time over the course of an hour or so because I was worried about her intake of milk. I know this isn't good and had probably led to reinforcing the bottle aversion my DD seems to now have.
I've tried different teats, and bottles. I've removed lactose from my diet. I haven't changed formula (she has SMA top ups).
At a recent weigh in she's dipped slightly below the 25th and the HV called me to discuss this. She then said there's no concerns despite me saying that it takes a big effort on my end to get her to feed at all. We now often have to 'dream' feed her during the day at nap time or else she won't go beyond a small 60ml / 2 oz feed at a time.
Expressing milk for this sort of feeding routine has been really hard and I'm starting to struggle, especially when seeing other babies down large 180ml bottles. That seems like miles away from our experience. It doesn't matter if I feed her on demand or if I space feeds out for a few hours, her behaviour is the same and total intake remains the same / low for her age and weight (6kg).
I've just read online about feeding aversion and some of the exhibited behaviour really matches my DD. As soon as the bottle is removed she will stop crying so it would be plausible to deduct it's not a pain related issue so not reflux or CMP? But will speak to GP this week to rule this out first.
We are now in the cycle where I am stressing about her feeding, which obviously isn't good for her and I dread every bottle.
I just don't know what to do next, obviously will speak to GP next about possible reflux being an issue or CMP but has anyone any similar experiences and can advise what helped?
Thank you!