Feeding/tongue tie - please help!!!!

[catgirl30]

Tongue tie advice please!!

My baby girl is 4 months old today and for the past few weeks we have had a nightmare feeding her.

It started at the beginning of August when 2 days of screaming and refusing the bottle landed us in A&E to be told she has reflux. We had used tommee tippee anti colic bottles but shortly before the A&E saga I had changed to Mam as she had a better seal and did not leak as much on them.
The Mam bottles malfunctioned in the end and the vents weren't working so she wasn't getting any milk out. In my frustration I experimented by switching back to TT and bingo, took the whole bottle. She's been going fine on TT until about 2 weeks ago, we seem to be having worse wind, reflux, colic, sore tummy and general screaming ALL. DAY. The last couple of days we have struggled to get much milk into her - lots of screaming, very very long tiring feeds (for us and her) and she seems to gave to "chase" both the teat and her dummy to get a real good suck established.
She's on medication for reflux, has been given different milk in case of CMPA, but these don't really seem to make a difference.

Now. She also has a tongue tie, which doctors, nurses, consultants, health visitor, the GP and even a speech and language therapist have dismissed as not much of an issue. I'm convinced my poor little girl cannot reach the teat with her tongue.

It's the last thing I can think of thats giving her such awful feeding/digestive problems. Her TT bottles were amazing in the beginning, I stupidly changed them because she was leaking out the side and now we can't find anything that agrees with her.

Could this simply be a case of needing her tongue tie snipped?? I am absolutely demented. Feeding should be a lovely bonding experience and instead its a long, screamy, upsetting experience for everyone.

Call your health visitor/midwife & say you are breastfeeding & it's an issue.
They will see to it right away. If you breastfeed they do something about it, if you bottle feed they don't.

Thanks but no, I couldn't breastfeed as baby was in ICU for 4 weeks post delivery, 2 of those under sedation. Me not being able to breastfeed is a very traumatic subject for me, and HV is aware of this.

I feel for you OP, my DS was bottle feeding and he also had tongue tie, it was a nightmare!!
The milk would just be dripping out the side of his mouth, he would be having a 3-4oz bottle which would take him atleast an hour to drink, he was losing weight, he would make a clicking noise while feeding on the bottle, and he would scream for hours with very bad trapped wind and tummy ache... poor bugger 😔
We tried different bottles, teats, infacol, colief and we also gave him the comfort milk.
I got in contact with my HV who came round to watch me feed him and she felt inside his mouth and said he has definite posterier tongue tie. She got us an appointment with the lead feeding person at our local hospital who then got us an appointment at Sheffield children's hospital. We went and it was done there and then.
if I was you I'd ring your HV and tell her everything that's going on and ask her to check his weight etc, even though I wasn't BF and was bottle feeding they still did it for my DS.

Could you afford to go privately to have the tongue tie snipped? We did with DS as the wait in our area on the nhs was so long. It was around £100, he was like a different baby once it was done. Hope things get better for you

We had a tongue tie consultation and division done privately 2 weeks ago. It was £195 in Northampton if that gives an idea of cost elsewhere. It's been a complete game changer for us. If you can afford it, it's worth it. Lots of places offer a discounted price if the division isn't needed. Good luck, I hope you can get it sorted.

My daughter was similar at 3 and a half months old. It may not be the same for your baby but I just wanted to share as you mentioned her not wanting to feed over the last couple of days.

My Daughter would scream and scream at her bottle and refuse to take it. I felt by me trying to feed her and her crying was making everything else worse. I was worried about her going so long without a feed and she gives similar feeding/ tired cues so I ended up trying to feed her. In the end I realised she wasn’t that ready for a bottle (I read about bottle aversion too as thought I wasn’t helping her).

After having a growth spurt, she just wanted to go longer without wanting to feed. How much is your daughter taking and how long between? Mines just over 4 month now and she will take 180ml every 4 hours, it did seem a long time to go compared to my first but she literally won’t take the bottle unless she’s ready. This also coincided with a developmental leap too as that happened around the same time. I have noticed when there is a leap she will cry a lot more and scream when she’s overtired (arches back and can’t settle).

my daughter has tongue tie and I was seriously considering paying privately for this at the time this was happening as I thought it must be that but I didn’t need to in the end. It can be option to go to a private clinic.

She still clicks on her bottle but it has generally improved itself over the last 3 weeks and I’ve managed to stop giving her infacol in the last week too.

Fight for her to get it snipped. My DD is 5 now, but when she was little she had reflux issues and she would make clicking noises when she breastfed. I didn’t think much of it, when she first teeth came out it came out in a v form. Didn’t think much of it again. As she got older, she was speak delayed and couldn’t prounounce certain letters like KGDT, I took her to be seen and her doctor told her she had a mild tongue tie but to worry about it and that it will stretch on its own. Which btw it doesn’t. Fast forward a year or so later, her dentist suggested she gets he tongue tie removed, which I jumped at the chance and got it snipped. Healing was quick and she was able to slowly start producing the sounds. I also have a 6 month, who was not gaining much weight in the first couple of weeks, and her latch wasn’t the best similar to my eldest. I brought it up to the midwives and guess what he had a significant tongue tie I got that snipped right away not surgery nothing just some scissors. Her latch improved and she began gaining weight. Trust you guy and get it snipped.

@Ehr1989 You mentioned that your little one clicks on a bottle - has that resolved itself now? You also opted not to get her tongue tie snipped - has that affected her ability to wean onto solids at all? Debating whether to get my little one’s tongue tie snipped x