Help! Why had my 3 month old started refusing her bottle!

[naevo]

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with their baby suddenly refusing her bottle.
A bit of background:
She was born a month early so is technically 4 months next week but we back date her age with regards to milestones, weight ect..
She is formula fed, we have tried switching bottle, formula, teats, teat flow, nothing has changed.
She had a very light tongue tie cut last week, this has made no difference, if anything it’s worse.
She’s dropped 2 percentiles within a month.
Feeding team, doctors and health visitors are no help as she is happy, overall healthy but sometimes I struggle to even get 1 ounce in her. She has roughly 20 ounces a day. This is not enough to gain weight! Feeding is also stressful for both of us now.
She used to be great on her bottles.
Does anyone have any experience?

More info, we have tried infant Gaviscon this made no difference.
All she seems to want to do is sleep, she sleeps through with one feed in the night, I have to wake her up in the mornings, when she is awake, she is alert and happy, she’s just keen to get back to sleep again after an hour.

The sleepiness is strange but it could be because she's not getting enough calories.

My baby was breastfed but around 4 months I suddenly couldn't feed him almost anywhere. He became extremely distracted. For a good month, I fed him in his room, in slight darkness, no noise, day and night. Try that?

I would wake baby in the night to feed to get some calories in right now.

Also, I read that when you cut a tongue tie, you're meant to do some exercises and recovery stuff and feeding gets worse temporarily. Hopefully someone who knows more will come advise.

If she’s having roughly 20floz a day, how much does she weigh @naevo?

I BF but my youngest did the same thing with the boob. I could only feed him in a quiet dark room when he was half asleep. To save myself headaches I'd get him down for a nap first, and then feed him while he was mostly asleep.

Walking around the kitchen helped too by distracting him! Some babies just have huge FOMO.

The sleepiness might be a red flag though - how many hours is she sleeping in a day? If it's outside of the range or normal for her age, maybe flag to your HV?

She currently weighs 11.8 and has fallen to the 25th percentile. According to the internet she needs over 23 to maintain weight and over 26 to gain, not sure how true this is.

Have you tried feeding her smaller amounts more often? Do you get a good burp out of her in the middle of each feed?

Thanks for your reply! She does actually feed a little better at night but when I try the same routine in the day, it’s like she knows and still fusses!
I think distraction does have something to do with it tbf, sometimes she needs silence and dark, other times I’m constantly walking around feeding her showing her out every window and that works sometimes, depends on her mood I suppose!

We tried smaller amounts but she ended up drinking less total at the end of the day. I think the little amounts were keeping her satisfied so she drank less.
we also try not to burp her too much as once she has burped, she will completely refuse anymore bottle!

Yes we’ve been doing a bit of both of these but even still it’s an effort to get her to feed! What works one feed won’t work another, I can’t make sense of it.
she sleeps from 7pm until 7am sometimes 9am with 2 feeds in that time, a dream feed at 10 then she’ll stir about 3am but won’t ever actually wake up.
she’ll then sleep probably 5 hours worth of naps in the day, sometimes less. But thought this was a red flag too but the HV isn’t concerned at all!

You’re right on the quantity. They should have roughly 2.5 Floz per pound in weight per day. So if she’s 11lb, that’s 27.5 Floz a day.

Can I ask which formula she is on? If you’ve tried a comfort type formula and if anyone has suggested the possibility of CMPA?

Our son developed a bottle aversion from 3 months, he was also in nicu for a bit after birth. I genuinely think no one really knows what a bottle aversion is and we tried everything, even GP’s and feeding team didn’t understand.

I did my research and we got down to bottle aversion. Is she visibly distressed when she feeds? If she turns away and takes the bottle out of her mouth do you put the teat back in? Sounds silly but that can cause an aversion.

And us parents worrying about how much they are drinking sort of feeds that anxiety for them without realising.

I followed a bottle aversion book. It is basically you offer the feed, baby takes what they want. The minute they refuse anymore you take the bottle away and try again in 5-10 mins. If they refuse again you end the feed completely and hide the bottle. Then you try again in 2-3 hours.

It took about 2 weeks but my son started drinking more and more, happily feeding. He knew he was in control and that I would “force” anymore milk on him.

The first week is the hardest as baby will take less as you aren’t forcing anymore on them, but long term it helps so much.

Our son developed a bottle aversion from 3 months, he was also in nicu for a bit after birth. I genuinely think no one really knows what a bottle aversion is and we tried everything, even GP’s and feeding team didn’t understand.

I did my research and we got down to bottle aversion. Is she visibly distressed when she feeds? If she turns away and takes the bottle out of her mouth do you put the teat back in? Sounds silly but that can cause an aversion.

And us parents worrying about how much they are drinking sort of feeds that anxiety for them without realising.

I followed a bottle aversion book. It is basically you offer the feed, baby takes what they want. The minute they refuse anymore you take the bottle away and try again in 5-10 mins. If they refuse again you end the feed completely and hide the bottle. Then you try again in 2-3 hours.

It took about 2 weeks but my son started drinking more and more, happily feeding. He knew he was in control and that I would “force” anymore milk on him.

The first week is the hardest as baby will take less as you aren’t forcing anymore on them, but long term it helps so much.

How have things been today @naevo?

We’ve been having good days and bad days but I think we have been getting progressively better!
I’ve taken all your advice on board, depending on her mood I either feed her in a dark calm room or walk the house with her. If she starts to refuse, I leave it, no more forcing the bottle which has really helped! We’ve also been less regiment with her routine and she seems to have taken to having a bottle every 4 hours (6 bottles a day) instead of 3 so is having one less bottle a day but drinking more in the bottles she is having. She’s averaging about 24 ounces a day now which is better, I’m hoping she continues to drink more as we go. The main thing is though, we are both a lot calmer at feeding time now.
she gets weighed again on Thursday so we’ll see how we get on there!
Thank you for checking in!

You both being more calm and her taking more milk overall sounds like a huge will. Well done