3 month old suddenly fussy on the bottle

[yhk]

3 month old has within the past week become extremely fussy at the bottle. She will thrash her head around and use her hands to push the bottle away from her mouth. She'll also chin tuck when the bottle teat is near her mouth.

She will eventually drink, but I'm not sure whether this is a normal behaviour or something else that needs investigating.

She doesn't poo too often, perhaps twice a week. I've spoken to a doctor about this. They felt her tummy, asked what her poos look like and ultimately said it's fine.

We're feeding her Aptamil. I did start to get her the "hungry" variety, as she'd easily polish off her usual 180ml feed.

She now requires fewer feeds, and will go throughout the whole night sleeping.

When she gets over her fussiness (which can take 20-30mins) she will drink. Sometimes not the full 180ml though.

I'm leaning towards going back to the doctor, but she seems happy enough, isn't in any obvious pain/discomfort, lots of wet nappies and her poos are consistent in appearance/viscosity.

What do you think?

Hi, OP

Do you think she has any of the silent reflux symptoms? Our little one does the same and has silent reflux.

at 3 months she needs to move onto the next size teat up. Try that, the flow may be too slow for her which is causing most problems.

Thanks for your replies.

@readingismycardio I had a look and from the list of symptoms, she only really coughs every so often. She'll have little coughing fits that sound like it's from the throat and not the chest, if that makes sense. Haven't thought it has been something to be overly concerned about.

@Readytoevolve I did try the next size teat yesterday. She wasn't used to the flow and it was dribbling all out of her mouth 😂

I decided to call for a doctor today. After 5 days, she did a small poo which was extremely firm and not like any she has had so far. I would describe it as a loose adult's poo. Awaiting for a callback from the out of hours GP.

Not sure if reassuring or not but could just be behavioural! When they’re newborn they are just doing everything reflexively and don’t have many opinions but after mine turned 3 months she started having an opinion about bloody everything lol and this included bottles, which she refused even when hungry. Ostensibly because she could.

My little boy started behaving similarly at about 10 weeks. The fussy period lasted about 8 weeks in total, we thought it would never end.

We went through all ideas such as silent reflux (GP didn't want to know as he was still putting weight on), teething and bottle aversions but still don't really know what was the cause. Here are some things that helped us:

I ended up minimising as many distractions as I could, feeding him in the same chair in his room, with the curtains shut, no tv etc. That seemed to help. If I ever fed him out, he was too interested in everything around him. We also never pressured him too much.

We offered the bottle twice after he pushed it away and if he didn't take it, we took it away until the next feed, unless he showed signs he was hungry before which he never did. We think he had the start of a bottle aversion which started after his 8 week jabs. He went off his bottles and I was so worried he wouldn't get enough, I think I was accidentally pressuring him to drink without realising.

We discovered he no longer liked his milk room temp/cold, once we started to warm his bottles for longer he was a lot happier.

We moved him up a teat size which took quite a lot of getting used to but he's managing okay now.

I know how frustrated and upset you must feel, I used to just sit and cry worrying he wouldn't get enough but they won't starve themselves.

We are going through another tough period now as we are teething and currently won't drink his bottles without a teething powder 30 minutes before.

I thought babies were supposed to get easier!

I agree that it could be behavioural. At this age they start to get interested in the world around them and distracted from feeding. My DS was breastfed but he was the same at this age.

I know this thread is super old but going through same as OP - how are your babies now please?!
TIA!
edit: my baby has just turned 5 months old!