3 month old won’t eat and dropping percentiles
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Anonymous
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Anyone BTDT? My 3 month old stops a bottle feed (breastmilk or formula) after 2oz and arches and pulls away. A burp always comes up but then she doesn’t want to return to feeding. Will cry if we try to keep feeding. Sometimes we can come back before nap and get her to drink an extra oz. She’s not getting enough food per day. Total intake is 18-20z a day. Her weight percentiles have dropped in a few months from 50% to under 10. I took her in yesterday for help. I was told maybe could be lactose intolerance and given nutrimigen. She still arches away from that too after 2oz and then there’s a sharp high pitched cry on that stuff so we stopped it after a few feeds. They told me to quit all dairy for my pumped breast milk.
is this reflux ?? Her diapers are normal, she does not throw up, she doesn’t have inconsolable periods , she has no rash, can lay flat, she sleeps through the night. Feeding is bothering her halfway through and she’s not gaining weight. Was thinking about going back to pedi really being insistent on reflux help bit would appreciate advice from anyone who has BTDT. My first baby wasn’t like this and I’m very worried given her weight drop. |
Anonymous
| Not at all your situation so please ignore if I’m off base, but how often is she eating? My EBF first baby wanted to eat about 1-2oz (per weighted feed anyway) like 15 times a day. Does your baby express interest if you offer two ounces ever 45-60 minutes? Also I’m so sorry you’re going through this! |
Anonymous
| It takes two weeks on an elimination diet for dairy to be out of your system, so keep trying that for breastmilk. I would call ped and ask how long the special formula should take to work - it might be more than a few feeds. |
Anonymous
It’s around 8-10 times a day- when she’s hungry after a nap and then we offer before she goes back down. When we nursed she was a grazer also. We tried spacing bottle feeds to see if she would take bigger bottles but still no. If she was growing well, we would deal with all the grazing, but she’s not gaining weight well or increasing her daily volume since she was like 2 months old. Im stumped but the arching seems like what they say babies with reflux have. |
Anonymous
| I had one baby like this and it was reflux. The other had reflux too, but this was caused by allergies (initially, he was allergic to milk, eggs, soy, wheat, nuts). I had to stop breastfeeding and order special formula. |
Anonymous
| Can you go with a higher flow on the nipple? She could be gulping too much air |
Anonymous
| How long has it been since you quit dairy? |
Anonymous
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I had one who took forever to feed and reflux. It was a long slow road. The baby had no stamina to eat, ate slowly, always ended up with reflux screaming. The first 18 months were a blur of constant feeding, burping, and comforting. I felt like all we did was feed, but weight gain was slow.
Later in life and looking back, a lot of this was caused by low muscle tone, and earlier intervention with a pediatric physical therapist would have been helpful. I think it is worth getting an appointment with a developmental pediatrician since weight loss is happening. Does the baby have good head control? Lift up from a mat during tummy time or lay flat like a pancake? Does the baby "feel heavier" than friend's babies? All of these are signs of low tone. |
Anonymous
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Op here thanks for helping me troubleshoot this.
It’s been two days since I quit dairy; this morning she took a 3.5oz bottle of BM pretty well (which is big for her) with less protesting at the end. I used a slower flow nipple this morning to see if that made a difference (she had been on medium for a while). But I do feel like I hear rumbles in her tummy when she eats most times maybe she is gulping air? She’s pretty good with neck control and at tummy time can lift her head and roll. For the pp with two babies one with allergies, how did you know it was allergies? Issues with poops? |
Anonymous
This helped my baby who did the same thing as yours |
Anonymous
| OP, we had the exact same issues you are describing, starting around the second month. This stuff can be really hard to figure out and it is so stressful, heartbreaking, and exhausting. I am sorry. I tried eliminating dairy twice for several weeks each time. This did nothing for our baby. We tried different size nipples. A faster flow nipple seemed better (we tried slower flow and faster flow, but getting more food in him before the screaming started was better for getting him fed). We tried keeping him upright after feedings. This did not help. We tried paced bottle feeding. This made things worse and he ate less. We tried probiotics for baby and me. No idea if this helped. I believe there were other things we tried, but it feels a bit like a blur now. The lactation consultant strongly believed it was silent reflux (baby never spit up) and we got medicine from the pediatrician. The pediatrician was fairly unhelpful through this process, even when baby was losing weight, and just chalked this up to colic. Our lactation consultant was much more supportive and helped with troubleshooting. We never could decide if the medicine really helped. Unfortunately, I think more than anything, time helped. The screaming after eating and weight issues went on for about 8-10 weeks and then slowly subsided after, but those couple months felt like an eternity. Baby also had really smelly gas and poops during this time. Good luck, OP. See if you can find a good lactation consultant, too! |
Anonymous
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Oh gosh op I’m sorry. This can be so hard. My baby ended up developing a full blown bottle aversion when this started happening because I got so anxious I started pressuring without even realizing it (offering multiple times, getting up and walking around while feeding, distracting etc) and turns out my baby is really sensitive to pressure and it just made it way worse. The stopping at the same point every time (a common thing with bottle aversion, they eat jussst enough to get those hunger pangs away) makes me think it’s at least worth it for you to read up on bottle aversion to make sure that’s not it. I had to hire a (very wonderful consultant) to help us but once we followed the basic guidelines to ge through the aversion things got SO much better. So sharing to either prevent it from happening or in case it resonates:
https://www.babycareadvice.com/blogs/bottle-feeding/feeding-aversion She has a book as well, and the consultant I hired was Lindsey right from this website and she is kind and helpful. I found out about this as a possibility from my LC. As you said pediatricians have no idea. It was my LC who identified it might be a bottle aversion (we had started a special formula for suspected allergy as well and we think he had a bad reaction to the taste that started all of this but honestly I’ll never know) |
Anonymous
| Oh and check to make sure the bottles vent is working. I’m forgetting now how you tell for sure it’s working but that’s always a first thing Lindsay does is to make sure it’s not the bottle causing frustration. She said Mam particularly will have issues with venting. |
Anonymous
| Reflux. Get to the ped and go to a gi. Try mylicon and change formulas. |
Anonymous
| Mine had silent reflux; it was a challenge to figure it out. So sorry, OP, I hope something here resonates and helps. |