Not drinking at all now...

[lil monkey]

Hi all,

I have another thread going but the situation has got worse. Tayla over the past week and a half has been drinking less and less from her bottle - basically now I am at the point where I am pushing it to get her to drink 30ml each feed (every 3 hours). She has been waking up at around 10pm at night and having 100ml and then again at 3am she has 160ml but during the day her apetite seems to be dropping.

She has solids (rice cereal and pear) twice a day after breakfast and lunch and is having several spoonfuls but is it normal for a baby to lose interest in drinking when they start solids? She seems happy enough too.

I think I will make a Dr appt for her anyway to get checked out but there is nothing obvious to me that something else is wrong!

[Chickadee]

I don't think it's normal for bubs to lose that much interest in their milk when they start solids, though I could very well be wrong. It seems you're doing all the right things, offering milk before solids etc. It may just pass as a phase in a week, but I know that's not very reassuring :( All I can suggest is to try to give her formula or water in a cup (normal or a "sippy" cup). She won't starve without the bottle, she's obviously taking solids, but you need to be careful of dehydration so if she'll drink from a cup that would help. The novelty of a cup might even encourage her to drink more formula.

Good luck.

[lil monkey]

Thanks MarthaM.

Have also tried the sippy cup but like everything else, she thinks it is a toy and throws it on the ground!

She is having about one cm deep of a small tupperware container of solids which I think is quite a bit! I will get her weighted next week at the CHN too and see if she is losing weight.

SHe went through a non interest in food phase at about 4 months when everything else was more exciting but this is really weird!

Bring back when she was 5 months as ALL issues were sorted for that one month period haha!

[Chickadee]

Well you've got me stumped Lu! I'm looking forward to seeing all the other mums comments. Let us know what the Dr or CHN says.

[wattle]

I found that ds has lost interest in milk these days. He hardly ever breastfeeds from both sides any more and still isn't too keen on the bottle, although he's getting slightly better. He's such a rubber neck when he's breastfeeding too, he looks all around the place and then just loses interest.

He has increased his water intake though. He's quite happy having sips from a bottle. So I'm not sure whether it's a problem or not, but he seems happy.

Oh, he absolutely LOVES yoghurt, so I figure he's getting some calcium from that.

[weisje]

;) hi,
my little girl did nilly the same thing(silent refluxer). i have gone with gut insticts when she started solids at 5mths by theend of the first week she was on 3 meals a day in 2 wks she had increased here food to the maxium i tried to give her as pleasant time with that as it was a battle to get her milk into her so her bottles just got cut out by them self. she was only haveing between 300mls and 450ml out of bottle, night waking started up again i didn' give her any milk just water if it got desperate i bought a exercise ball and that but her to sleep if she woke really badly and some times i had slept with her i think it was dew to growth spurts and geting hungryer i tried to make everything with formular even vegies cereals, and kept a very close eye on her weight took her monthly to chn and fortnightly to chemist just to check weight, don't worry about sleep you will get it back around nine month mark, i was told to stay strong with routines especially sleep routines. it is hard to keep up sometimes with wat is next specialy when you don't get sleep. hope this helps. :p

[lil monkey]

;) hi,
my little girl did nilly the same thing(silent refluxer). i have gone with gut insticts when she started solids at 5mths by theend of the first week she was on 3 meals a day in 2 wks she had increased here food to the maxium i tried to give her as pleasant time with that as it was a battle to get her milk into her so her bottles just got cut out by them self. she was only haveing between 300mls and 450ml out of bottle, night waking started up again i didn' give her any milk just water if it got desperate i bought a exercise ball and that but her to sleep if she woke really badly and some times i had slept with her i think it was dew to growth spurts and geting hungryer i tried to make everything with formular even vegies cereals, and kept a very close eye on her weight took her monthly to chn and fortnightly to chemist just to check weight, don't worry about sleep you will get it back around nine month mark, i was told to stay strong with routines especially sleep routines. it is hard to keep up sometimes with wat is next specialy when you don't get sleep. hope this helps. :p


Hmm interesting! tayla is a silent refluxer as well and she has been off her medication for a month or so now and no problems so far!

All up she is having the same amount as your bub in formula and is eating a heap with solids. And, her night waking as per your bub!

Nine months?! I had better get ready and prepare myself for middle of the night wake ups again properly.

Her day time routine is all over the place but she tends to have 2 x 40 minute naps and one 1.5 hour nap at the moment but the 1.5 hour nap is late in the afternoon!!

[Tisme]

My daughter refused all daytime bottles at the age of 5 months. She just threw them at me or knocked them out of my hand as if saying "why drink when I can eat!!" My Dr suggested cooking and preparing all foods with formula and to offer it to her WHILE feeding her. This worked a little but not nearly enough. Then he suggested that I water her formula down at her night wake (around 10 or 11 pm) so that she was getting more fluid than milk and to offer the "real" bottle first thing (6am) in the morning. She kept refusing for around 4 days then must have realised she was darn hungry through the night and started drinking the bottle.

We were hospitalised with dehydration at 6 months where I learnt that she NEEDED at least 800ml of fluid (be it water, milk, formula, juice or even lemonade) to keep from dehydrating levels. I don't know if that was just her but it would be worth checking what her minimum intake SHOULD be. I was hospitalised again with her at 9 months for the same reason, she was terrible.

The biggest thing I was told though is to not stress too much. When you count up all the fluid you use to cook with as well as those night bottles you may be suprised at how much you are tricking her into drinking.

Good luck with it.
El

[lil monkey]

Well we just got her down to bed and she is now quiet after 15 minutes of crying. But, no dummy tonight and 15 minutes is damn good for her as she has gone 1.5 hours before!

I have made up some home made stewed pears and pureed it with extra water in it and have some bottles ready of thepear juice that formed to try tomorrow so she at least gets some fluids into her. She took 120ml at bed time tonight and we topped her up with some rice cereal again.

I think it might be a case of that she is more interested in solids for now than her milk - probably because it tastes a damn sight better!

So, we will try the feeding of solids 3-4 times a day and only after we have offered her a bottle.

Oh, MarthaM, tonight with the sipper cup, she turned it upside down and decided to try sucking and biting the bottom of the cup - at least it wasn't thrown on the floor I guess! ;)

[Chickadee]

Oh, MarthaM, tonight with the sipper cup, she turned it upside down and decided to try sucking and biting the bottom of the cup - at least it wasn't thrown on the floor I guess! ;)

And at least they don't leak! When I first gave Chloe a sippy cup I tried to drink out of it myself and was surprised how hard i had to suck to get anything. And thinking back, she did more chewing on it than sucking at first. Must be tough to figure out since it's so different from a bottle teat - mine had a hard sippy bit, it doesn't go to the roof of her mouth like the teat, etc. I tried a couple different cups and finally just took out the rubber bits that control the flow. It meant she could spill it, but she could also actually get some out of it. She caught on to using it much faster after that. I've heard other people just use a cup and straw, or perhaps a cup with a softer spout.

[lil monkey]

Yes well, I took out the non spill plastic thingy so water went everywhere but it kept her amused for half an hour!

I think I might try a straw as she likes sucking that way!!!

[weisje]

hi again good point made about dehydration, just look for signs that is wat i did, dry around mouth like cracked lips wrinkle skin that when you pinch her skin it doesn't go bac and when her soft spot is very concaved then get her to hospital,my little one also had a dummy which i didn't like and tried number of times to get rid of it and someone told me if they are in pain then it isn't a good idea to take there comfort away so i limit it to just sleeping. she is now 17mths. i have also talked to alot of other mums who there children are silent refluxers and they have stayed on ther medication till after teeth are all through which i now agree to i tried at 6 mth mark did ok for a while the night waking started up again, put her straight back on it, just came off now as last eye tooth is through. i found that as every grow spurt happened and she begain doing something new she would miss behave at feed times other times she seemed happy enough, also when i had taken her of the meds at 6mts and she started misbehaving and i had tried every thing i then gave her a does of mylanta eas her pain so next feed was ok. when i worked that it was reflux thing i didn't take hur off it again she is was on low does losec. i was also told to give her as much varity as possible so by 7-8mth she had zuccni, squash,peas,corn,caluiflower,pumpkin,sweet potato,potato,apple,pear,banana,mango,peaches. as much as i could get.
also when here reflux played up we followed a routine of FEED PLAY FEED SLEEP recomended by chn. i also feed her asleep to slip dummy out slip bottle in at start of sleep. hope this helps i know how hard it is.

[weisje]

hi me again
i was told by another silent refluxer mum that sleep is just as important as them feeding if the can not get back to sleep by them self and the obvious is not wrong then it could be reflux. jess would only have a sleep cycle of 20 mins, hope this has helped

[lil monkey]

hi me again
i was told by another silent refluxer mum that sleep is just as important as them feeding if the can not get back to sleep by them self and the obvious is not wrong then it could be reflux. jess would only have a sleep cycle of 20 mins, hope this has helped


Thanks for all the advise! The interesting thing is that she is happy all day and not whinging unless she wants to go for a nap! So, basically she seems happy in every way but I am the unhappy one as she isn't drinking her bottle!

She woke up last night at 12am and had 120ml and then again at 5am and had 180ml - these two feeds seem to be what we can get her to drink more but during the day next to nothing!!!

Might try her on some mylanta and see if that makes a difference.

[weisje]

hi how things going?
some thing i was told was that cause they have been sleeping they are relaxed the more relaxed they are the easier, to get it into them thats maybe why she drinks at night. it somtimes seems like it going on for ever but there is light at the end of the tunnel jess is over one and it gets better, i find it hard because you see little ones that cuddle into their mums and just go of to sleep and have tere bottles, unfortunatly jess was and still is not one of those, but she is very funny and some of the other kids her age aren't so i hang on to that. :rolleyes: