Seeking advice for difficult bottle feedings when awake

[cow_boy]

Our baby just turned 8 weeks earlier this week and is EFF. Recently, in maybe the last week or 2 (or more, time has basically blended at this point), she's started to have really difficult feedings whenever she's awake for the feed.

She'll exhibit her usual signs of hunger and once we present the bottle to her, she'll latch and drink for a sec, then start fussing, crying, flailing around. We then have to calm her down which can take a while, then attempt to bottle feed again. Sometimes, this takes multiple attempts before she finally relaxes enough to drink, or usually, she gives up and sleeps which makes the feeding much easier.

If she's already sleeping for a feed (i.e. an overnight one), this doesn't happen. It only happens when she's awake when starting the feed.

Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you!

(I posted this on /r/NewParents but didn't get any comments so I thought I'd post here for any advice)

 

[syntychie]

@cow_boy Have you tried going up a nipple size? I know when our LO isn't getting feed fast enough, it's straight up fight club with those arms swinging! Might not be the answer, just an idea.

 

[cow_boy]

@syntychie We've considered moving her up to a 3m nipple, but she's still kinda struggling with the 1m nipple right now. She definitely likes it better than a 0m nipple, but she's still not great and avoiding dribbling some milk down her chin. We'll definitely try upping her nipple size a little early if this still continues, thanks for the idea!

 

[alysson]

@cow_boy Sounds like a possible bottle aversion. It tends to happen around this age as well. Reco reading Rowena Bennetts book to address and reducing any kind of pressure you’re giving for her to eat

 

[cow_boy]

@alysson Thanks for the rec! We did read up on bottle aversion and there's definitely a chance we're placing too much pressure on ourselves and her to drink. We'll for sure try to be better at letting her decide when and how much she wants to drink.

 

[roundtown98]

@cow_boy Currently going through this with our 12 week old! Started a couple weeks ago. Wish I had good advice to give. We did go up to the next nipple flow and tried different bottles, but not much improvement. What kind of formula are you using?

 

[cow_boy]

@roundtown98 Yeah it's frustrating because you know they're hungry and you're just trying to feed them, but then they get upset and it just makes things more difficult. Hopefully it gets better for us both!

We are currently on Similac Pro-Total Comfort. We were using Kendamil for a while but she got really bad gas with it, so we switched after a friend rec'd it as their baby was going through bad gas too.

 

[mary0608196]

@cow_boy Oh my baby had something similar at 8 weeks. I think it was related to gas. She would drink then stop and cry out and flail and then drink again. Is your baby also farting? It seems like she was getting most of her gas and poops out while drinking and it was uncomfortable. It might not be the same thing as yours but it was right around then and after about a week or so it got considerably better and back to normal. She’s 10 weeks old now.

 

[cow_boy]

@mary0608196 She doesn't always fart during the feeds, but has farted at times. She doesn't poop during a feed 99% of the time. She also does fart normally outside of feeds. We've definitely burped her during a difficult feed and it seems to help but then she also still gets upset after a burp.

Good to know that it does end eventually; hopefully we're at the tail end of ours

 

[liam2019]

@cow_boy Could it be oral thrush? My 10wk old was doing this as well. I think it was a combo of gas, needing to size up the nipple, and oral thrush causing discomfort. I started mylecon drops after every feed, upped the nipple size, found out about the thrush and started the meds and she is back to normal chugging bottles

 

[cow_boy]

@liam2019 We thought it could be thrush, though she doesn't seem to exhibit any of the other typical thrush symptoms. We'll definitely bring it up at her next peds appointment in a few days.

 

[bonitabaggett]

@cow_boy I could have written this myself! My daughter is almost 9 months old and still only takes a bottle when she's asleep or half asleep. We tried not pressuring her, tried different feeding positions, upped the nipple size, nothing worked. She has silent reflux that the doctor wouldn't treat because it's mild, and also we pressured her a lot to eat, as she was born borderline low birth weight. I think these were the two major causes for this, that we couldn't fix or reverse. Try the book that someone else has suggested, I would have read it if I've heard about it soon enough.