Baby constantly upset during feeds

[Ppeter500]

Hello there … baby is now 3.5 months and I’m
finding it really difficult at the min to feed baby.
when she was first born she had a bit of reflux but that was mostly due to over feeding (baby was super low in weight and dropped lots so midwives asked up to over feed for her to gain weight and then reduce feeds when she was healthy weight).
when she had the reflux she was given some gaviscon and we were told to do things like prop the bed up and keep her sitting upright for 20-30 mins after each feed.
everything was going really well and the reflux was pretty much a distant memory.
then all of a sudden she started getting super fussy around the bottle, it just came on one day and she would be really hungry, take some, then be pulling away screaming and crying.
she went from taking 4oz bottles every few hours to now only 2 or 3 oz.
after a couple of times it happened I called the health visitors and they just said she’s approaching 4 month mark could just be a regression, others said it could be her trying to work out how much she wants to take. I kept mentioning reflux and they all said the same thing that by this age she would have grown out of it and it’s unlikely to be reflux if she’s happy and content at other times and only upset just during feeds.
anyway, it’s now been around 3-4 weeks that I’ve struggled with this. She takes her bottles fine at night but it’s only in the day she’s like this. When she gets like it I have to give her a dummy and rock her for about an hour just to get her down.
I honestly am at my wits end and feeling so upset for baby as I hate knowing she’s so upset, I spoke to the Dr this week as well and just explained everything - needless to say it was like talking to a brick wall ‘oh’ ‘ah’ ‘Hmmm’ was all I got. When I mentioned reflux it was then a case of oh yes probably that then just use gaviscon again.
spoke to health visitor straight after (as they advised that if I use it again they’ll be sendimg
someone to my house for a home visit as medicines shouldn’t be used for reflux apparently), and she said that she genuinely doesn’t know what to say and it’s the first time in her career she’s been this stumped.
i am honestly so confused. It truly is so rare that baby will take a bottle (other than at night) and enjoy it. I bought that book about feeding (can’t remember what it’s called some baby guru wrote it) as I thought she was having a bottle aversion but honestly it’s made no difference and all the stuff in there is about pressuring babies to drink so they’re now scared of the bottle, but I just let baby do her thing and I go with her flow entirely …
unfortuantley with her bottles being so crap her night time sleep has regressed as she doesn’t get enough feeds in the day to sleep well at night…
what on earth am I doing wrong people, please help me as the professionals aren’t able to do anything for me…

What formula?
my son did this exact same thing, nigjt time bottles fine but in the day would scream and cry but still try to eat as he was hungry.
we tried everything for reflux but it turned out to be a milk allergy

She’s on cow and gate! I didn’t think of milk allergy as thought there would be more signs … what formula did you find work?

Nappies were another sign for us, slightly constipated but when he did go it was unpleasant. it was more the feeding he really couldn’t handle it. Like it was painful for him to eat.
We started of on sma lactose free, helped a little but it enough then we were prescribed Neocate. Which was great.

@Kathryn91 that’s same as DD, she doesn’t get constipated but she goes about 3 times a day and they’re always very unpleasant.
have mentioned all of this to Dr and HV and both feel it’s no cause for concern
clearly I need to keep pushing. Did they do any tests for your LO or did they just go by symptoms?x

I don't understand the bit about medication for reflux shouldn't be used for reflux, so they'd visit you at home?! What?!

My little girl was prescribed omeprazole due to bad acid reflux. Whilst she did spit up acidy vomit etc, she also had "silent" acid reflux and would scream and cry at feeds as it hurt her oesophagus when she drank due to the acid. GP was confused but paediatrician said they see this screaming response all the time. There was another baby in our antenatal group who had the exact same (so 2/10 babies - can't be that uncommon). If your GP and HV are clueless, request a paeds referral.

Edit: paediatrician did tell us that dairy allergy tends to come with more symptoms - vomiting between feeds, stomach discomfort between feeds, rashes etc

I'm going through exactly the same thing as you except my baby is breastfed. He's absolutely screaming his head off when I feed him but trying to latch back on because he's hungry.

He also previously had gaviscon but our prescription ran out a few weeks ago and he seemed fine without it until this past week! He's also projectile vomited so I'm wondering if it's an allergy but he has no rash.

He's dropping down the percentiles and noone seems to want to help. It's so hard to know what to isn't it.

My baby is now 5.5 months and she sometimes has phases like this. Tbh I think she has mostly grown out of it now. For us it could have been a bit of reflux, but she also freaks out a bit at feeds when it's time to move up a teat size - assume you've probably thought of that though? I think they do go through periods where they are just less hungry and they get frustrated while feeding. Definitely look into the possibility of allergy though if only to rule it out!

Sounds like my little one. We switched from cow and gate to SMA and was fine since! We even thought he had a dairy allergy at one point it was so bad. But SMA suited him so much better. Might be worth trying different brands.

Reflux peaks at 4 months also it's not linear so it can keep flaring up. My daughters gets worse whenever she has a growth spurt. Whenever she got a cold and when she cut any teeth.

Fussy at feeds like you described were always signs we needed to get her reflux meds reviewed. It might be worth a chat with the GP to trial omperazole given this history of reflux

Have you increased the teat size as she’s got older? She might be getting frustrated if it’s not coming out quickly enough… probably not the magic answer but worth a try.

You don't need a rash for an* *allergy the dropping percentile and projectile vomiting is enough to do a dairy free trial. If you do go dairy free be mindful of your soya content as half of babies react to both. Don't remove it entirely but during the first few weeks avoid soya milk/yoghurts and meat substitutes.