Hi I know this is a really old thread but it's closest to the problems I'm having with my 15 and a half month old daughter. She's had feeding problems from the beginning, thankfully I never had to resort to syringe feeding but I've had very little support regarding the feeding problems. Everyone seems to conclude I'm doing something wrong or that my daughter is just a picky eater. Also, I've met ppl who's kids are not either good with drinking milk or with eating but never both! I thought once it gets to solids it might get better but it hasn't. And it's not that she's not hungry, she'll only eat or drink when she's really really hungry, sometimes not even then. What really scared me was a few days ago where she hadn't eaten or drunk anything for five hours since waking in the morning and she was getting cranky cuz she was hungry. But she drank 2 oz milk, was still hungry, then I tried to feed her Plain yogurt (which is the only thing she eats), and that too she just had a few spoons. The scary part was that she had beads of sweat pouring down her face!!! Which means low blood sugar, that means she was sooo hungry but still refused to eat or drink milk. And now since the past 3 months she has resorted to exclusively drinking milk while sleeping. I tried to put her to sleep and then fed her milk.
I really don't know what to do. It takes me over two hours to feed her bottles (while she sleeps) because she'll take 2 oz realize she's drinking milk, then reject it and go back to sleep. Right now she's only takin 3 bottles a day ( while sleeping, and that too she doesn't finish, so hardly 15-18 oz a day). One after bed time, one before she wakes up in the morning and one during nap time. And if no nap then no bottle!! Other than that it's just yogurt, and that too half a cup, and maybe some vegetable purée. But it takes me an hour to do that too, while distracting her with cartoons and holding the spoon in front of her mouth forever till she decides to eat it! I thought it would get better by now but it's just getting worse and her intake just keeps reducing everyday. I think she has some sort of oral aversion but I don't know what to do. I live in Saudi Arabia but am visiting my parents right now in Dubai. If anyone could suggest anything that would help I'm really open to anything!
As to her history, I had a natural birth full term, and everything was fine with me and the baby. My milk came in late, like after 6-7 days, and I really wanted to ebf but couldn't. Also because when I started feeding her she became an extremely colicy baby! I have now learned that it was unrelated because after 6 weeks I completely stopped bf her and the colic stayed. I changed her milk to Similac total comfort, no help. Switched to hypoallergenic, no change. That was a very difficult time of my life, she would cry 7-8 hours everyday all night, during which....not feed, get tired sleep for 10-15 min, wake up crying for another 20 min and the cycle continued the whole night. Then she would finally collapse into an exhausted sleep, I would feed her while asleep and the next day it was the same thing all over again.
This 8 hour crying thing continued for about 8 weeks, drs did nothing, said everything was normal. Then at 8 weeks, we had really bad 4-5 days. On the final day, she cried all night 8 hours, plus all day 8 hours, same cycle, not a drop of milk, she stopped sucking on pacifier, and was hungry but wouldn't suck the bottle. My DH and mil tried to feed her with a spoon and she was drinking hungrily. Then my mom realized what the problem was, the closest translation that I can do is a partial sterno-clavical dislocation. It's sort of common knowledge in subcontinent culture, or atleast the midwives there and family elders know of this condition. (the peds that I spoke to know nothing of it, but I know that's what helped fix most of my daughter's "colic".) My mom did a minor adjustment ( she knew how because it used to happen to my elder bro when he was a baby, and my older aunt had taught her what to do. Symptoms are uncontrollable crying and not drinking milk or sucking on anything. The thing is my mom knew that the baby doesn't drink milk at all in this situation, but apparently the baby can drink some (if ur not fixing it and baby's very hungry, or if it's not a full on kind of partial dislocation, I know it sounds confusing but I don't know how else to explain it). Btw the same night I had spoken to one of my cousins, and the same thing had happened to his daughter when she was a baby, had been going on for two weeks and progressively getting worse (then his mom who was visiting at that time fixed it).
Anyway, after that day she never cried uncontrollable for hours on end, and though she did have gas issues, as long as I had done a colic massage on her tummy once or twice throughout the day she would be fine. Maybe 1-1.5 hrs of crying and this lasted about 5 and a half months. But during those 4-5 days (at the end of 8 weeks) where she had been getting really bad and crying in pain and not drinking milk, I feel it was really painful for her to suck and she associated that pain with milk and never liked to drink milk. She would be hungry and rootin around but not latch on, or not take the bottle. Then i learned To trick her into taking the pacifier and quickly switching wih a bottle after she had started sucking. It worsened right after this one feed when I tried to give her aptimel anti colic milk, and I wasnt aware but it sort of has some bigger particles in it so it would need a nipple with a bigger hole for it to flow right. Anyway the poor thing was sucking for half an hour and was only able to get half oz out! I bet that must have been really difficult and painful for her. So even after her sterno-clavicle thing ( like a partially dislocated collar bone, due to mishandling baby's neck or something like that) was fixed she continued with this feeding problem thing.
After that I ways had to try different tricks to get her to feed. Hold her a certain way, not move the bottle at all while she's feeding, not move myself at all. Dreamfeed as much as possible because that was easier. In fact I can't remember when I felt that she actually liked drinking milk or it gave her comfort. I always had to somehow try to put her to sleep so that she would drink milk. And u know the viscous cycle of too hungry to sleep and to sleepy to feed! It was sooooo difficult. I thought with her colic days behind it would get better and I could just forget it all, but I have just had to keep changing or tweaking things to get her to feed. I can't remember after 3 months when she might have actually fallen asleep after a feed how babies normally do. I would feed her in a quiet room, a dark room, then I started placing a small handkerchief over her eyes and she would somehow relax enough to take the bottle. ( all the while always having to give her the pacifier first and then quickly switch to bottle, something I have to do to this day). From Lemon drops post, I can really relate to the part where she says she has it down to an art and she is the only person her daughter will feed from, her and the night nurse. But same goes for me, my daughter only drinks milk if I feed her, even when she was 2-3 months, my husband would try and she would either not drink at all or drink a bit and leave it.
Even now when she's really hungy she will drink just enough so she doesn't feel hunger pangs or something. Same goes for eating! Solids hae just been a whole other story. I don't even know if I can post that long. But someone please help me!!!!! It's five in the morning and I'm up feeding my 15 month old daughter 1-2 oz every 10 min. She still doesn't hold her bottle ( though she physically can, and also coordinate it to drink it) because she simply wants nothing to go in her mouth, especially milk! I tried sippy cups, she drinks water ( that also not too much) but not too interested in milk. She's fine with eating bits off the floor and put things in her mouth and everything! Then why is it just with food! I really don't know what to do.
The poster who talked about cranial osteopaths, did it help ur baby with feeding problems? And the feeding therapist in AlAin do u think she will be able to do anything for me?? Please help me! I'm a first time poster so I don't know if I add to this thread I ppl will actually be able to see it. I'll try to start a thread of my own with a link to this one.
<em>edited by Sasha21 on 25/06/2013</em>
