Longish -15 wk old ff baby refusing bottle half way through - please help ) o :

[Jbck]

DD2 is 15 weeks & has been formula fed since 3 weeks, her decision not mine. Did mixed feeding till 5 weeks but milk dwindled so quickly I had to give up. She is currently on Aptimil Extra Hungry and has been having problems for the last 2.5 weeks, HV suggested faster flow teats which we tried & they seemed to make a wee bit of a difference for a few days but things are back as bad as ever. She will take a couple of ounces then get extremely frantic & refuse bottle whether she is hungry, not very hungry, just awake, been happily playing but I know it's getting near a hungry time etc. Until yesterday I could coax her through most of the rest of the bottle (6 ozs most feeds) but she point blank refuses to feed when DH tries but since last night & 3 feeds today she has been hysterical with me too. She's fine when she's not feeding so I don't think it's just teething altho' we have tried gel & a teething ring before feed in case bottle was irritating her.
I am at the end of my tether, she's starving and it's so distressing seeing her so upset, both of us have been in tears for her last 2 feeds. I'm usually really calm so I don't think she's picking up on me being tense normally cos I'm not really but I feel so bad for her it's getting to me now. Even tried her with the next teat up, 6 mths plus ones, but no better. Bottles are TT Closer to nature ones. She's sleeping just now & I'll try her later when she's still a bit dozy to see if it helps before she gets fractious but I'd be grateful for any advice/suggestions.
TIA

when did you introduce the hungry baby milk?

she is not starving, if she was , she would be finishing every bottle..

maybe she has a tummy ache... or maybe she is taking in a of of air and needs winding ?

also, she will pick up on your anxiety, so try to relax and not be worried before you even start the feed, easier said than done, i know...

Jbck, formula feeding's not something I know much about, sorry, but would just ask, why do you need her to continue eating? If she only wants 2 oz at a time, is this not ok? Maybe she prefers little and often....a possibility? Clearly, it's really distressing for her, and you, to insist on her finishing the bottle all at once....

Would agree with Tiktok, DD was FF from start and sometimes would drink all milk and other times wouldn't but we never coaxked her to eat it, would possibly rethink hungrier baby as well it may be that it is filling her up on less hence not drinking all milk

and it can give babies a tummy ache

DD was formula fed , and a snacker.. didn;t regularly drain bottles. and would be satisfied with small amounts on a frequent basis...

feeding your baby is emotional and worrying they are not getting enough is a worry

Sorry should have said she was drinking about 7 ozs every feed till the last couple of weeks so her intake has drastically reduced, & HV seemed to think she was not taking as much because she was getting really frustrated if it wasn't coming fast enough. Put her on the extra hungry long before this refusing thing & it was fine didn't seem to cause her any problems as she had been drinking loads & never seemed satisfied but wee tummy was bulging on the normal stuff, her intake dropped a bit then but had increased to the 7oz level. DD1 was exactly the same but she never seemed to need faster flow teats & continued to increase milk till she went onto solids. DD1 is incredibly thin but eats like a horse & has bags of energy so never worried about her.
DD2 will take her dummy in the middle of a feed to calm her but makes noises like she's trying to get milk out of it and crying because she's still hungry. I was sceptical that the faster flow would help to be honest as I reckoned if she was that hungry she would work harder to get it out, it did seem to resolve things for about a week but as the problem seems exactly the same again I'm doubtful that it was the real cause originally.
She isn't taking lots of little feeds cos I've tried doing that before trying the faster flow, would be fine if that worked but it didn't unfortunately.
I don't want to force feed her by any means but I'm worried that she's gone from taking 25 - 30 ozs in 24 hours to about 16, I'm sure that's not right.

is she windy? she might be sickening for something..

is she happy. alert, sleeping well, weeing, pooing etc...

Sorry Lulumama just re-read your post, she's been on the hungry milk since about 7 weeks, she isn't very windy and we never have any problems getting wind up, she isn't arching or pulling her legs up. I've sat & winded her for ages in case I wasn't persevering long enough but I just ended up with RSI & probably she had a sore back
I'd not be bothered if she didn't want it all but she's crying as if she's still hungry at the time. She was a really happy smiley wee soul till this episode.
I'm just having a bad couple of days I think as normally I'm very calm & we just get up & go for a wee walk till she calms & then try again if she seems hungry or I leave it & try distracting her to see if she looks for more, if not I reckon she is satisfied. Oh they're a worry aren't they.

Everything else seem sokay, except my blonkin' broadband keeps failing. Thanks for listening. I'm off to feed myself before I cry with hunger!

ok, then it is probably one of those things ! a phase ! let her guide you, don;t panicc if she does not finish her bottle, variflow teats can be good as they adapt to the baby's suck, so that might be worth looking at?
all the best x

Hi Jbck, sorry about all your probs... Try diff teats for sure, maybe an even faster flow? But also the hungry formula is not supposed to be given unless your baby is taking 8oz straight at every feed - that's what I was told anyway. Could you try goin back to normal ff for a bit?

Hope you're having a better night of it! [smikle]

I bf so no experience with bottles, but DD used to get very fussy and not feed even though she was starving, and it seemed that she was just very tired and impatient. Maybe you could try feeding her a bit earlier before she gets too tired and hungry.