Not eating at 4 months...

LilCarciofo

The triplets are a little more than 4 mo. now and my daughter refuses to eat.  When the bottle comes near her mouth she screams.  She'll take the pacifier without a problem, but doesn't want the bottle.  She'll bite the nipple and play with it and push it around! It is literally an hour long production for her to drink most of her bottle.  Now, it seems as though one of the boys is doing the same.  My dr feels its their acid reflux but that has been steadily getting better.  I thought maybe teething, but the dr said they are only starting to teeth, its not that bad yet.  Any ideas???

TwinMama83

No real ideas for you, but I do feel your pain.  My DS did the same thing for a while.  There were 2 things that helped.  We would sit him ALL the way up to feed him, and he usually liked that.  The other thing was just to listen to his cues and take lots of breaks.  If he started fussing and crying real bad while we were feeding, I would just stop for a while, give him a pacifier for 3-5 minutes until he calmed down, then try again.  Sometimes after a little paci break he would finish the bottle.  Sometimes it would be a screaming match the whole time.  I usually would just get a set number in my head and say something like, once he gets 4 ounces in him I'll give up.  I didn't want to put him to bed starving, but I also didn't want to force feed him either.  IMO it's not reflux if the fussing and pushing the bottle away stops the second you remove the bottle. She would still be crying and fussy afterward.  DS still does this sometimes, just plays with and bites the nipple rather than eating.  I just stopped stressing myself out about it.  If he's really getting hungry or is really hurting (as in reflux), I'm sure he'll let me know!

Laura_Lee

My son went through a "food strike."  He just wasn't interested in eating.  It's still a challenge to get him to take enough milk every day.  He's gaining enough to the point where he's not falling on the growth chart, but it's been a struggle. 

The only thing I've found that helps is to make sure he has absolutely NO distractions while he eats.  Considering the fact that you have two other babies to attend to, I'm sure that's no small task.  But, whatever you can do to eliminate distraction, try it and see if it helps.  If anything else interesting is happening in the room, my son gets SOOO mad if I try to get him to eat, but the second we're in a quiet, dimly lit room, he chugs the whole bottle down. 

Lastly, based on your siggy I must say that you have to have an amazing amount of strength and patience to have gone through all that you have.  It's so wonderful that you have your 3 miracles on the other end of it all!  

plainjanie1

DD was doing the same thing.  She would take so long to finish we would have to throw the bottle out and then she'd be hungry again soon after.  VERY annoying... I found the only thing that worked was to lay her down flat on her back.  For some reason, that's the only way she'll drink a bottle now unless she's starving, and even then she'll only take the bottle in our arms for a short time before she starts fussing.