Can someone please give me advice... My 4 month old constantly cries & now doesn't feed properly!

[Hargreaves14]

I honestly don't know what to do! My 4 month / 18 weeks old wakes up every hour at night & barely naps during the day! She cries an awful lot. I don't know what to do. She was feeding 7oz of hungry baby every 3/4 hours and crying am hour after the feed and moaning. The past week she keeps hitting the bottle away and doesn't drink more than 5oz. This morning It took her 50 minutes to drink 3and a half ounce! I spoke to a health visitor about it a couple of hours ago and it's like she didn't believe because she's putting wait on fine and she said it's really not normal that she takes so long to drink so little and she didn't comment about the constant crying. All she said was 'feed her when she wants it and if she knocks it out don't give her anymore'. She usually knocks it out after a ounce or two :(.

Please does anyone have any advice I'm exhausted!

Just a quick thought but have you tried a faster flow teat?

Sorry, toddler was clambering on me...

Could be teething? Maybe try a dose of calpol 20 mins before a feed to see if it helps as a one off.

I would perhaps go for a GP review too. HV can be great sometimes but not others.

There is a 4 month sleep regression which can be fairly spectacular too I'm afraid.

Can you ask your gp to rule out cows milk allergy (cma). My dd had this and feeding her was hell, she fed little and often, was unsettled and cried. A lot. She also had silent reflux.

We were prescribed nutramigen formula (for cma) and omeprazol (for the reflux) and she was better instantly.

It may mot be this since your LO has good weight gain, but get it checked out just in case. My gp and hv were worse than useless and didn't listen to me. But eventually a gastric paediatrician helped. But ask your gp to rule it out as undiagnosed its miserable (for you both).

Oh and think about weaning early (I weaned dd at 20 weeks and she has gained all the weight she was missing). It's controversial as all guidelines say 6 months. But I don't know a single mum in my peer group that didn't wean early.

Is there a reason you are using hungry baby milk? Could you go back to using first stage milk and see if that helps? Agree with trying a faster teat too. FWIW hungry baby milk doesn't give more calories, it's just harder to digest so if she isn't taking enough milk and crying after feeds it may just be the hungry baby milk to blame!

There's some info here on the developmental leap that may be affecting her behaviour and here on Cows Milk Protein Allergy.

I second ruling out cow's milk allergy. Allergies can appear at any time and sometimes after many many times of eating that food.

Also second ruling out a milk allergy. Does she have any rash/constipation/diarrhoea/reflux?

I'd definitely check for teeth, my DS was exactly this age and drank the exact same amount, and the week before his first two teeth popped through he was a total whinge, woke up hourly having previously slept through and it was a real struggle to get him to drink two ounces.

When did this start? Have you changed the milk?

DS2 was formula fed, and hungry, but could not tolerate anything other than the first stage milk.

Also worth checking the teats.