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August 2011 Moms
LO Trouble Feeding
Let me start off by saying that I intended and fully desired to EBF. However, that did NOT work for us. 
LO was a preemie and I had flat nipples, she needed to quit losing weight, and I had a low supply...seriously, the cards were stacked against us!
That brings me to our current situation, she's never been the best eater, but this is getting ridiculous. She only eats 4 oz of formula every 4-5 hours. If you try to get her to eat more, she gags herself and is generally miserable. I was excited when it got time to introduce solids, and she took them like a champ. She LOVES it! But then, she was only eating an ounce of milk every 5 hours. So, we had to cut out solids. She went back to 4 oz every 4-5 hours, most of the time. But getting her to eat the last ounce has been quite the struggle recently. She bucks around and kicks and jibber jabbers, not like she's playing, but like she's annoyed.
She barely finished her 4 oz bottle this morning, it took 30 minutes! Then, I was eating my breakfast and she was crying for it, but wouldn't take any more of her bottle.
Do you have any ideas? Have any of you experienced anything like this?
TIA
This discussion has been closed.
Re: LO Trouble Feeding
I guess I shared about the breast feeding because I'm still bummed. I see all these people around me who do it, and it seems so effortless. I guess I still have some unresolved guilt/anger about it!
She's small for her age, but started off at only 5lbs5oz. She's steadily been in the 4-5% for weight. They're not worried about her weight, because she is gaining a healthy amount.
I was giving her 1 Tbsp cereal and peas or green beans 2X a day. Then I cut out the veggies, and then only 1/2 Tbsp cereal.
I've used a sippy cup, with only slightly better results. I have let her sip it from a real cup too, but I think we spilled more than she got down. I did increase from Level 2 to Level 3 nipples, and that didn't really make a big difference.
Have you tried decreasing amount, increasing frequency of feeds?
Some babies just take that long to feed. My nephew took 45 minutes to BF, it drove my SIL crazy, but she did it anyways.
O is eating roughly 4 oz every 3-5 hours. I don't think that's so far off the mark.
Have you tried different temperatures? I babysat a couple of kids who would not take their bottle if it was the slightest bit colder than they liked it.
Ditching the solids is no great loss at this point. You know the majority of her calories will be from formula for the first year anyways.
If all else fails, and the docs issue a FTT diagnosis, there are MANY specialists to help. DS1 saw an occupational therapist when he was a newborn, and that helped us get him bottle fed and off his NG tube.
Anyways, good luck!!