Unsettled Feeding

My little girl is 19 weeks old.
When she was about 6 weeks, we started mixed feeding (bottle while I was at work, breast after hours).

About 4 weeks ago, it became obvious I didn't have enough milk for her, and so she started full bottle feeding.
Since this time, most feeds (say 3 out of 4) she is very unsettled. She struggles and squirms, grizzles and grunts. She wants the bottle, but then doesn't want it.
Feed times have become a struggle, and the problem seems to have gone from bad to worse over the weeks. Her appetite has decreased enormously since we changed her to full bottle, some feeds she just doesn't want anything, other feeds, she leaves about 60mls.
She doesn't appear to have lost any weight, and she is still a very happy baby, just not at feed time.
Generally she is a 4 hourly feeder, with 1st feed of the day around 7am, and last 1 around 8pm.
She doesn't bring her knees up or anything like that when she is struggling with a feed, and she has no trouble bringing up wind, so we don't think it is a wind problem.

We never had this with our other 2.

Has anyone else had this problem??? Any advise would be appreciated.

My daughter had the same problem for a while. I went back to work when she was 4 months old and had no choice but to give her formula. She too used to complain and grunt, but after a while she did get over this complaint - how long have you been giving her the bottle for? My daughter is now adjusted to it and doesn't complain at all. She is now 6 months old and is doing fine. I have fully weaned her off breast milk as she was biting quite severly (as she has 3 teeth), so hopefully you will have no problems further down the track. Caitlin only lasted about 3 weeks with the problem and then was fine.

Dear Mel,
I have a baby with a VSD (hole in heart) & had surgery at 5 wks for coarctation of his Aorta artery which was narrowed. Prior to finding out about his condition I spent every week at Dalewood Homes which is similar to Tressillian. I had difficulty breast feeding him as he couldn't breathe properly when sucking & he wasn't putting on weight. The nurse at Dalewood monitored him for 5 weeks prior to suggesting I see a pedeatrician. Dalewood also offered great support as a baby that doesn't want to feed can be upsetting & stressful. You may want to visit your local baby health clinic and speak with the nurse - they also offer great advice and support. If she is still putting on 150 - 200gms per week then she should be fine, weigh her 3 times over a 2 week period, if not then you may want to take her to a pedeatrician for a full check - that would probably put your mind most at ease. I'd also suggest to change teats as she may not like the one you are currently using, also check it is the correct size hole - I use the Nuk brand as he didn't like Avent. He also still only feeds 120ml per feed at 8 months but feeds 6 feeds per day - you may want to try feeding smaller amounts more often.
Regards Sasha

Thankyou for your suggestions. I think i may have found the problem.

Since introducing Hailey to the bottle we have been using a newborn teat, a friend suggested last friday night (7/3) to try a different teat.
Over the weekend i swapped between the newborn size and the 6mth old size, and found she had these unsettled periods when using the newborn size but not the 6mth size.
So far, we haven't had any more probs, so hopefully thats all it was.

It just goes to show how simple some problems can really be. We always assume the worst and sometimes are lucky to find out its only a minor over sight. It also goes to show a mother of 3 doesn't necessarily have more knowledge than a first time mum.

To Sasha who responded to my subject today, thank you for your suggestion, and goodluck with your little boy. You mention he was 5 weeks when he had surgery, how old is he now, Did he recover ok, what do they say his outlook is like?
Good luck and best wishes to you both.

Mel.

Hi Mel,
I'm glad you found my suggestions helpful. Jesse is doing extremely well, no different from your usual 8 month old although will need the VSD repaired within the next 10 years. I'm still stumbling through sleepless nights and working full time. If you can offer any insight into getting a babe to sleep through the night I would be interested to hear. I can't let him cry for too long as I live in a unit and I have already had a complaint. Jesse has been an extremely high maintenance babe - due to feeding difficulties, so I think I'm pretty updated on those issues. Jesse's feeding issues were an extreme case and don't want anyone thinking the worst but just as a precausion when all else fails it is a good idea to take them to the Dr.
If anyone is interested please take a look at www.heartkidsnsw.org.au for further information on congenital heart defects.

Hi Sasha, I don't know if this will help but I read in a parenting mag that subsituting a night feed with a boiled water feed should help your baby sleep through, apparently it works and your baby after a few nights wont wake up for that feed, I also think that whoever complain about your baby crying was rude and they should have realised that all babies cry and if they dont like it to ask there parents if they ever cried at night. Good luck and enjoy your baby.

Hi guys,

just thought i'd update on the latest with the bottle refusal.

It turns out Hailey is suffering with reflux. The vomiting part has only started to become very noticeable in the past 3 weeks. Previously she would just have a little spit after a feed, which we put down to her being a bit of a spewy baby. But it started getting worse, more frequent, in between feeds, and larger amounts.
At this point she started refusing her feeds again, she went down to 80mls per feed, and sometimes less (only about 300mls per day and she is supposed to have 900 for her age group).
We tried some infant gaviscon to see if it would make a difference and found it did settle the vomiting a bit, but made her very constipated. We started her on s26 reflux formula, and this made a huge difference to the vomiting, but not much to the appetite.
We saw the doctor last week, and she put her on some zantac as a trial, and her appetite returned immediately, that night we were back to 180mls and looking around for more. she fell asleep feeding for the first time since she was a newborn, without all the fidgeting and fighting.

She is such a good baby, and isn't whingey at all, so we had no idea this could have been the problem, she just refused to drink.

Only problem now is the relux formula also makes her constipated, but when we took her off it thinking the zantac would control it, she started vomiting and refusing bottles again. We are going back to the reflux formula, and giving water, prune juice and green veg to try to get the bowells moving ok again.