Failing to Thrive - Silent Reflux? Help... Desperate

[OpheliasWeepingWillow]

My 6 month old DD has been refusing bottles over the last month and has never taken more than 3oz at a feed. She's been on Neocate for the last 3 weeks. For two of those weeks we added rice on the pediatrician's advice but it seemed to make her worse.

No improvement yet.

She is on 30mg Zantac 3 x a day and I'm having to string feed her rehydration salts all day between feeds (if you can call them feeds).

Now she is only drinking around 15oz a day over 11+ feeds and I am exhausted and so worried. She's shooting down the centiles and looks skinner every day.

They are not tube feeding as she is hydrated.

There are some tests coming up to look for congenital abnormalities...

Every day is a battle and with each bottle refused I honestly want to cry as I can't help her. Seeing friend's babies drink 8oz at a time is heartbreaking.

We tried Losec but it made her tongue blue and did not help symptoms.

Does any of this sound familiar to any of you? (If you have managed to read this far...)

So worried and just want to be able to get her happy and fed. Once more she has gone to bed on an empty stomach (she's refusing solids as well)

My experience comes from having an underweight baby. They thought it was reflux at first but in fact it was hypotonia, a weak suck. Hence my advice to go back to the bottle, but with the right teat. And of course to go back to the doctor.

It doesn't take rocket science to understand that babies shouldn't be exposed to too many foods, especially processed foods like ice cream and cake as you suggested because they contain additives that may cause all kinds of reactions. Their guts can't cope with it. Giving lots of different foods means that you are never really getting to the bottom of the problem because the baseline is always changing.

The other worrying thing about cake, chicken legs and cucumber sticks are that babies can choke on them and this is a real danger.

We went through exactly the same when my DD was a baby, she was severely FTT, and had severe reflux (and the horrible gag reflex :( ) I would second DameSaggars suggestion of seeking a Speech and Language Therapist who has some experience of feeding issues. On their suggestion we did some oral exercises/desensitisation that helped a little in the early days. Later down the line we saw a Clinical Pyschologist who specialised in feeding problems. She thought that the reflux was key here and that it was disturbing the normal 'windows of opportunity' for 'learning' to eat properly. The first priorty is to make sure the reflux is properly treated, in my DD's case a videofluroscopy showed the reflux was way worse than previously thought and they changed her medication to Omeprazole and Domperidone, which had better results.

Sending you lots of hugs, I remember all this as being a really stressful time..

Achillea,

I never suggested cake. I suggested chocolate (almost pure fat) and ice cream. If you buy good quality chocolate and ice cream, they are not "processed" at all, in the sense that you mean. I am not suggesting Walls' finest made of dodgy vegetable oil.

And, yes, they can choke on them in theory. On the other hand, this fear of choking is what prevents a lot of babies being exposed to different textures, which causes an awful lot of problems with gagging later on, as they are exposed to them far to late to accommodate them naturally.

Just to clarify - I think solid food probably is better for a refluxy child; when I suggested stepping back from it for a while it was to prevent dd from getting more orally defensive.

I totally agree that she needs solids. In fact we weaned her at 17 weeks and she took to food like a dustbin! Could hardly keep up with her. But, then came the bottle refusal and a complete elimination diet with Neocate.

Now she treats food like the devil's work. Gags, vomits, cries, splutters. Does not matter who is wielding the spoon or the method of getting it into her. She will chew on vegetable sticks but I think because she has not worked out they are food!

At one point she did put the spoon in her own mouth.

So today I have gone back to basic. Bought some yoghurt melts and cheese puffs for babies. I reason that if the snack melts before it gets to her gag reflex it might be better for her.

Anyway, managed 4 yoghurt melts, two pre chewed raisins (me masticating... I know) and a puff before she decided she had enough. Small progress.

Just had a horrible bottle / crying incident though so am not counting my chickens.

Is there ever any end to the worry? Refusing bottles again since last night... Teething? Reflux? Campaign to make me bonkers?

Back to the ped.

Well slap me with a bottle and call me a bag of panic. Went to the ped in tears as she would not drink. Diagnosis teething and mother on the edge.

Has had 500ml today, a lot of Calpol and the cream from the top of my hot chocolate.

Feeding Therapist booked for Friday to sort out solids.

Any books out there on 'how to allow your child to not eat very much whilst you calm down and watch the view?'

Totally the opposite problem here today. He's suddenly decided to drink 7oz bottles instead of 4oz ones and I'm panicking that it's to much, given that it's high energy formula that we have in the house. And that's despite the fact that he's teething like mad.

Although he'll be back to refusing to drink anything whatsoever for my parents on Monday, I'm sure.

You really do need to try and disengage from the whole thing, I think. Otherwise you'd lose your reason entirely.

Some0ne am sure lots of high energy formula can do no harm. I think!

Babies are so perplexing.

We just sought a second opinion from a professor of pediatrics who said to space bottles even more, get her on solids come hell or high water and take no nonsense from dd. So, I will work up to that with the help of some Kalms and a nightly glass of Pinot.

Diagnosis - skinny but stubborn. A relief.

Now for the hard part. Food!

Yes to the widely spaced bottles, our paed forbade anything less than 4 hourly feeds and it worked well (depending on who was feeding him, of course. We also have a mightily stubborn one).

Babies are so perplexing.
Yes. Yes indeed.