Help with feeding and weight gain..

[june05isttimer]

Hi all

Boy I am completely at my wits end and entirely upset and frustrated with my 13week olds feeding habits or lack there of.

She is formula fed and has been since 3 weeks of age.

The last few weeks though as per a previous thread I put on here is that she is refusing the bottle at some feeds and most other feeds will take some of the bottle and then jerk around and scream and cry to the point where you can't get anymore food into her.

The CHN says that for her weight she should be taking a total of 750mls or so per day which should be around 5 feeds of 150mls.

She is fed 5 times a day or whenever she seems interested (which is rare) and is only taking 500mls on average per day at the most and more often than not its less than that.

She is still putting on weight but only small amounts.
I have had her at the gp twice and now our peadiatrician about the issues and all are not overly concerned at this stage and cannot find anything physically wrong with her.

I have tried offering her some farex thinking that maybe she was ready for food. That did not work.
I have tried changing the bottle and teats to no avail.
I also changed formula thinking that might help but she fiddled around and did the same thing on that formula as well as the one Im using.
She is pooing and weeing fine.

Our peadiatrican wants to see her in 8 weeks only if she starts falling through the lines in the graph on the weight chart.
At the moment she has settled into the 50% band which Im more than happy with, but am completely beside myself that she is going to continure to go down with the lack of food she is taking in.

My thread I posted similar to this that people answered in similar situations was that there were solutions to their problems whether it be thrush or reflux etc.
The Peadiatrician went through all these with me and she has none of these. He checked her ears, throat, mouth, tummy etc etc.

Help help help help...........

Has anyone had anything remotely similar with no medical issue causing the problem?????
Or can anyone else offer any suggestions as to what I can do or something?????

Hope to hear from someone sooooon.
Thankyou :(

[jamb]

I can only offer a little reassurance in that my bub has always eaten or should i say drunk a little. He was bf until about 4 months and bottles since.

To this day most of his bottles are only 100mls each- the tin says 200mls! Sometimes he might have 150mls. On average I'd say he has between 600-700mls a day (tin says 800mls).

I used to worry but as his wees and poops are fine I figured he ain't going to starve himself. I stopped going to CHNs very early on so bub has not been weighed but he is now in size 0 so thats enough reassurance for me.

You've done all you can by going to CHNs and DR's and she is gaining weight- thats good.

All bubs are different, just as adults are. Some of us are pigs and others eat like sparrows! Offer her her bottle and if she doesnt want it leave it for a little while and offer again. My bub quite often drinks 50mls, waits half and hour to an hour then finishes it off. If I rushed him or forced him he just spewed- soon stopped doing that!!!

It sounds like you know the warning signs to look out for but if they aren't there and she's happy I'd try to not worry (hard I know).

Good luck! And for further down the track, my bub is now on solids and eats like a horse, but no change in the bottle side of things, still a tiny drinker. Doesnt matter if I offer it before or after the meal its still only appro 100mls. I've tried tricking him, put more in the bottle but he magically knows when he's drunk 100mls and puts bottle down, ggrrr :D

[Tannie]

I can't really offer any great advice except for my own experience.

My bubs now nearly 7 months and has been bottlefed since 9 weeks. She has never consumed the amount of formula she is "supposed to".........even now she generally only takes 5 X 120 - 180 mls at a time. According to the charts etc -she should be having 240 mls each feed...........never once has she drank that much or even near to it.

I think when she was about your bubs age she drank around 100 - 140 mls a feed......I always just demand fed her and generally would work out at 5 bottles in 24 hrs - sometimes 4, sometimes 6.

She is a big and healthy bub, meeting all milestones - no problems there at all.

You bub might just not be a big eater - as long as she is gradually gaining, healthy and having plenty of wet nappies - I wouldn't worry too much.

I wouldn't go giving her any solids at this age - just not a good idea - unless specificially recommended by a paediatrician for whatever reason.

HOpe this helps.
T

[jembelina]

I'm coming to the conclusion that more babies do this than we realise! Although i have breasfed my bub all along, a good number (about5 or6) of mums in my mothers group have been bottle feeding from early on and none of their bubs drink as much as they are 'supposed' to! It is a constant source of concern for them but none of their bubs are anywhere close to fading away to nothing anytime soon! They are all healthy, thriving babies :) I bet if us b'feeding mums could see ow much bub is getting at each feed we'd probably be dealing with similar issues! Sometimes at one feed my DS will suck for 2 or 3 minutes so i just have to trust that his body knows what it is doing!

Sorry, probably not very useful, just thought it might help to know there are others in the same boat.