Baby still refusing bottle 1 week after 8week vaccinations

[Nnewman]

Last week my 8 week old had his first round of vaccines. We put him in Calpol but he still had a raging fever, would scream anytime he moved, or we moved it was awful. He’s generally a very happy baby, gained weight perfectly, bottle fed easily and on a perfect schedule, already puts himself to sleep and sleeps through the night. But since the vaccines it’s like I have a different baby. He lost his appetite for the first couple of days, but although he’s still a bit more fussy than usual a week later, he is almost completely refusing to feed.

sometimes i can get a few ounces in him, but he’s gone from feeding on 5oz formula every 3 hours to almost nothing at all. He screams any time the bottle comes near him and sticks it out with his tongue. Even though he’s still giving his normal hunger cues (rooting, fists in mouth, licking lips) about 3 hours after a feed he will not take it.

I called health visitor who was unhelpful, just said to keep trying and as long as there’s wet nappies he’s fine…

he’ll often take the first feed when he’s just waking up but after that basically nothing all day. I’ve tried feeding him sleepy/at the end of a nap but doesn’t work. Any ideas? Anyone had the same after the vaccines?

he’s been on MAM bottles since birth and always loved them. He has struggled with bad wind and reflux, but that seemed to be getting better.

Vaccines can exacerbate reflux.

I think a week of heavily reduced feeding is enough for a GP visit, especially if he's not happy in himself.

I agree. It's time to see the GP. Don't bother with the HV, he's needs checking for infections.

See the GP. It might not even be related to the vaccines- it could be covid, the flu, strep throat or another nasty virus and the timing is purely coincidental. Or maybe the reflux is getting worse and needs medicating. Whatever it is, the GP should hopefully be able to get to the bottom of it.

Also, I would try Calpol in case there is some discomfort which if reduced may get him to feed more.

Hi
My baby is literally going through the EXACT same problem. But it’s the 12 week jabs, and found to struggle to latch onto bottles, gentle lethargic sucking when he eventually does otherwise pushes away the nipple, also using mam bottles. Been now 9 days since the vaccine, please could someone help. Also would really be keen to find out what happened with the baby this post was originally about

Quick update for anyone who finds this thread in the future - month after this, after countless GPs telling me he would eat when he was hungry… my son was diagnosed with a severe tongue tie by a private lactation consultant. The NHS told me 3 times that he didn’t have one when I queried his feeding was, and then when i managed to look with the private practitioner I could see how obvious it was and was frustrated I couldn’t see it myself before.

After his tie was cut, because he was so old for a tie cut, he still couldn’t drink from a bottle, his sucking reflex had gone and I ended up working with Rachel O’Brien (US based IBCLC) via Zoom who was a godsend and is generally amazing for all bottle refusal/tricky to feed babies. After lots of technique support, bottle testing and mouth exercises, my little one is 7 months.

It was a long road to get him to drink properly, many weeks and months of hardly taking in any milk at all, him losing weight and screaming at the sight of a bottle but with Rachel’s guidance he is a different baby. I was advised that the vaccine weeks coincide with around the time babies lose their reflex to suck, so any physical oral limitations they have, tend to reveal themself around this time. If they can’t suck without the reflex I would get their tongue, palate etc. checked.

My son also suffered with reflux and gas (the milk was pouring down his throat without any ability to control the flow because he couldn’t move his tongue) and my breastmilk supply dried up around 6 weeks because I now know he wasn’t actually able to draw any milk out despite being able to latch. So if you have had any of those symptoms please get your little one checked and avoid the horror that was months 3-5 for us!

@Nnewman hi i know this is a old post but thought I’d comment on the ofchance you’re still on here!
my daughter is 12 weeks old we’ve always fed on a schedule of every 4 hours since she was born basically after quite a bit of weight.
she was finishing a lot of 5oz bottles about 4 weeks ago so she would of been around 8/9 weeks old so I moved her to 6oz bottles she drank a couple of them and was having around 700ml give or take 50ml or so every day then from maybe 2 weeks ago so around 10 weeks old she stoped draining the bottles now she very rarely goes above 650ml. She’ll have one day where she’ll have700ml the she will hardly drink anything the following day.

I never knew about there sucking reflex’s going I’ll have to do some research into that!
how much did your little one go down to drinking?