Advice about bottle feeding please - reflux, wind, choking,

[Itsmeitscathyivecomehome]

Hi there my little one is nearly 3 weeks old.
Since 1 week old she has been on Kendamil organic milk and is having approx 2-4 ounces every 2-3 hours.

She guzzles the bottles to begin with frantically then will relax a bit as the feed progresses. She struggles to regulate her breathing as she feeds. She is constantly clicking on the bottle and doesn’t seem to have a good latch. She will often choke during feeds and inhale milk.

We use doctor browns size one teats.

She is visually very uncomfortable after a feed. Grimacing, pumping arms and legs, red face, wriggling,

She gets the hiccups all the time. She occasionally possetts but rarely vomits.

She brings up burps ok - sometimes they are really aggressive big belches. We give her infacol.

She suffers badly with wind. Constantly straining grunting. Usually from 3am - 6am but also throughout the day.

She poops during most feeds. Yellow mustard sometimes seedy. Sour smelling.

We hold her up for 20+ mins after a feed to help her digest and try to burp during feeds too.

Please help me. I don’t know what’s wrong with my baby and I am finding every feed so anxiety provoking.

Have you spoken to your health visitor? Your section about her pumping / physical discomfort made me think milk allergy but I'm in no way qualified to know for sure.

HV is a good first step and if they think it could be an allergy they'll refer you to GP for a test.

If it is then you don't need to worry, they'll help you get prescription milk and get baby settled.

I’d investigate tongue tie and cows milk protein allergy allergy.

Also the clicking and hiccups could be tongue tie indicators. If she is TT they'll only separate it up to a certain age - it sounds horrid but my dd had it and it was absolutely fine.

Again HV is your best port of call.

If you can't reach them / get no help, see if your maternity unit has an infant feeding team. We are Warwick and the team there were exceptional in getting my daughter help with her feeding when she was tiny. They were the only ones who listened when I said my mum radar was telling me something wasn't right

Have a look at paced feeding as well.

It could be that she's just guzzling and that is causing the issues.

If she takes the milk slower it might help a bit.

So I’ve just been to see the infant feeding specialist for our borough. She had a feel of little ones mouth and said there was no obvious anterior tongue tie but it did feel tension under her tongue and perhaps posterior. She also commented that DD didn’t lift her tongue fully when she cried.

she advised to speak to private TT practitioners to get more advice on cutting TT of bottle fed baby. Also to speak to gp about milk.

Thank you for all your comments. I don’t really feel any further on but hopefully someone can help me work out what’s going on. X

Hi, my baby is 5 weeks old and has the exact same problems. She is currently on neonate but still having issues with reflux and choking / clicking etc. same description of potential tongue tie as yours. I don’t know what to do. Do you have any update. Did you get sorted?