Bottle Feeding issues

Hello - hoping someone has gone through this before and can help me out with some advice!

Ryan is 4 months old and was an excellent bottle feeder for the longest time...until about a week ago. A week ago he started moving the bottle out of his mouth with his tongue, pushing the bottle away with his hands and pulling back off the bottle and gagging. He used to eat close to 180 ML's per feed (or around 850-900 for the day) and now we're lucky to get 120 in him per feed (or 700-750 for the day). I spoke to the pediatrician about this and she said maybe it's reflux. So we've had him on reflux meds for 5 days now and nothing has changed. It now takes an hour to feed him and I almost feel like we're force feeding him.

And the worst is when he doesn't eat enough during the day he now wakes up at night after 3 or 4 hours wanting to be fed and keeps us up while we try and soothe him without feeding him (b/c he used to be sleeping 6 hours through the night and we don't want him to get used to eating at 3 AM rather than 6 AM).

We don't know what to do about him. He was born 8 weeks premature and needs to gain a little weight as it is so this whole not eating thing is really worrying us.

Has anyone gone through this before? Any advice? Is it teething? Is it that he wants solid foods? We've already upgraded the nipples to Level 2 (Doc Brown's) and the next level is for babies 6 months +... so I don't think that's it??

Help!

 

:hug: teething was the only thing that I could think of or an ear infection. Have you tried giving him motrin a half hour before feeding?
I hope someone has some better advice! I know how worried we get about our little ones not eating.

 

what reflux med is he on? If he is just on zantac, ask about switching to prevacid...its a stronger med and works much better for most babies.
Could be teething as well...and teething always makes reflux worse, so a combo is hard to get through for some. Like pp mentioned you could try giving some tylenol.
Does he suck on a paci? If he's refusing a paci too could be an ear infection...it hurts to suck.
As for solid foods...some will say he is too young, but we were going through the same thing at about 4.5 months. To us dd wasnt eating enough so solid foods was definately worth a try, and it did seem to help some.
Regarding the weight issues-we had to put cereal in dd's bottles both for reflux issues and also for weight gain...without the extra calories from the cereal she definately would have stopped gaining weight. We also made her formula extra calorie-ummm...100ml=2 scoops formula.

 

WOW...so glad I found this post. I asked a similar question yesterday. The girls will be 4 months on the 20th, and our good eater is now doing exactly what you described. I checked her mouth for that thrush, but I don't think she has it. The only white I see is a tiny bit on her tongue and I think it's milk residue. She has been drooling a lot lately, so I don't know if it's teeth or what. I was over a year before my first tooth came, but DH was much much younger. I hear that is hereditary. Now I'm wondering about an ear ache...but she takes her pacifier ok. I called the nurse yesterday and she said she may just not be going thru a growth spurt right now and therefore may not be super hungry. I'm going to keep checking this post for more ideas. I hope it's not an ear infection. She seems too happy for that. I really don't want to pay the copay at the doc if I don't have to. I would hope she'd give me better signs if it's that.

 

when our boys started physically rejecting the bottle it was due to teething. we've been dealing with reflux from day one and in our experience the reflux response was always to just stop several ounces sooner than we thought they should be eating. when teething started they suddenly started biting down, pushing the nipple away, and acting as though they were really hesitant to close their mouth all the way and suck.

4 months isn't too early for teething, you could try a little orajel on the gums before a bottle. if you peek into his mouth can you see any redness or puffiness?

 

As soon as i saw the header to your post i thought teething! Our girls behave in the same way, it's so frustrating!

 

I agree with the PP who said to try Prevacid if he is on Zantac. It can take up to two weeks for the Prevacid to work but it's supposed to be much more effective.

 

We have had the same issues, and it has always been due to teething. I'll put Little Teethers on their gums (or Hylands tablets or gel), and within a minute they are okay to take the bottle.

 

Thanks for all your replies... Maybe it is teething? I just figured they were too young to start teething, especially being 8 weeks premature (their adjusted age would be 2 months, 1 week).

I hope it's not an ear infection...but I would think that they would have more signs than biting on the nipple. My little guy is really really happy most of the time.

I'm going to try the orajel stuff and hopefully that works. I'll continue to check back and see if anyone else has suggestions!

 

I know this was posted awhile ago and maybe it's been resolved, but my 4 month olds just did the same thing! I thought it was a phase until I realized that I still had them on size 1 bottle nipples and they were having to work really hard for the milk. I ran to the store and bought size 2 and voila!! Problem solved - we are now back to normal eating in under a half an hour!! Hope you're well!