How long do you take to bottle feed?

[HeidiT]

My 6 month old used to be good at feeding until a few months ago. She now has a thing where she will grunt and go rigid arching her back whilst I am feeding her and then sometimes she will cry. I have tried loads of things, fed her in a quiet room, left her until she is more relaxed, given her gripe water all sorts but she continues to do this. The only feed she dont do this on as much is bedtime feed.

It sometimes takes an hour to get 7oz in her and I'm pulling my hair out trying to work out what is wrong. The doctor said maybe she has just had enough so on occasions I have left her for 20 mins tried again and then she guzzles the rest down. People have suggested to just leave it if she makes a fuss then dont try to give her anymore till the next feed.

It has me in tears cos I dont want to be force feeding her and I dont want to be starving her either. She has been on little taster solids for past 5 weeks but she was like this way before then so do not think it is them.

How long would you take to give your baby a feed? Should I be patient to make sure she is eating or give her a set time then that is it???????

Please help!

what speed teat are you using? maybe you need a faster one. How often are you offering milk?

dd2 (4 months) can finish an 8 ounce bottle in 6 minutes

when she was ready for the next stage teats it started to take her about an hour to finish, and she was falling asleep due to the effort

wow that is quick. i am starting on the number 3 teats now but she is spluttering alot with them and gagging a bit.

she has
7oz at 7am
3oz at 11:30 with some solids
6oz at 2:30
8oz at 6 for bedtime.

It is only really the 7am and 2:30 feed I have this problem with. The 6pm one she drinks it all no problem she is dozing off whilst she has it.

If she is guzzling it after a rest I would just keep doing that

All 3 of mine have gone through awful phases of doing this. It's like they want the milk but it's too painful to drink. Sometimes they've had a good burp and you still can't work out what's wrong. My 4 mth is doing it at the moment. I think it may be a bit of silent refux (like heartburn in adults) When he burps it brings acid up and he can't continue until after he's had a little break. When it has gone down, I start again, can take an hour or more to feed him sometimes.
On a good day he drinks 8oz in 10mins with one big burp inbetween.

glad i am not the only one going thru this. I am just gonna let her have a break in between mouthfuls and see how she gets on.
I will ask HV about reflux tom. Went to dr about it and they didnt have a clue what it might be!

Gosh - I'm so relieved thast I'm not the only one...

My little one is 18 weeks and I am struggling to get her to drink. It takes a good hour and even then she doesn't finish it all.

I was at the HV yesterday and she has dropped to the 2nd centile on her weight. But unfortunately she had thrush from 1 week old through to final diagnosis at 12 weeks. We kept insisting that there was a problem as she took 2 hours to feed, but we kept being fobbed off. So when she did finally get diagnosed and it was sorted, it was like starting again as her mouth and tongue felt completely different and the milk would have tasted different aswell.

Since then, things have improved slightly but not much. She sleeps through the night and has done since 5 weeks and I've found that feeding every 4 hours instead of 3, helps. But it does mean that she's only taking an average of 25-30oz a day.

I still need to leave her for a good half an hour after she's taken the first 3-4ozs and then she will invariably take the rest, although sometimes she doesn't want it at all.

She's growing taller and her head circumference is fine. She's pooing and weeing every day and she's happy. So I'm sure she's fine, just a very fussy eater - doesn't bode well for weaning in a few weeks though...

DawnAs dont worry Heidi was great at weaning. I am looking forward to when she is on more solids than milk as she seems to like them more.

Thanks HeidiT. I have been really distressed with Ellie tonight as she has only taken 24oz all day and at 18 weeks old, that's nothing. But I'm going to try not to panic as that won't help either. I'm going to start another thread and try and get some more advice...

xx