Anyone have experience???
Hi all,
I am not sure if I should be posting here, but I am just wanting an answer (I am sure that I am not alone 
). My DD has some serious eating issues. I have dubbed her a 'low eater'. A little background:
DD was born 8 lbs, 3 oz. Good Apgar. Came home and we BF for 2 months until I had to go back to work. Introduced bottle. She started refusing all forms of food. She would eat less than 10 oz a day. This slowly increased, and she will eat anywhere from 10-18 oz a day. She refuses food (solids). She has a high gag reflex. She is almost 6.5 months old. I think she is teething, because yesterday, she only at 6 oz of food (milk). She is BF (I pump, because she doesn't do well anymore at the breast), although I do try to start her at the boob and see how she does. She rarely looks/acts hungry. If I don't offer her the bottle, she won't show signs of wanting one; however, because she eats so little, I feel like I am offering it all.of.the.time. Her Ped doesn't seem to find anything wrong with her (she is gaining weight- is in the 80th percentile) and she is meeting her milestones. Generally a pretty happy baby. I asked the Ped to put her on Prevacid at 2.5 months old because I thought that would 'cure' it. I have referred myself to a Ped GI specialist, who also didn't find anything wrong (but didn't do an invasive test). She doesn't show signs of a food allergy that I know of (but does sometimes have olive green mucusy poops, so I have been on the 'elimination diet' for 7 days now- no soy, wheat, eggs, dairy, nuts, fish, etc). She does have one poopy diaper a day, and 4-7 wets (but only 1-2 sopping wet, rest are 'sorta' wet). I am perplexed as to how she is gaining weight, and eating so little. Not sure if this is a diagnosable problem or not. I am toying with trying to get a Ped endocrinologist referral, but not sure if this will help.
I know that this probably seems pretty meager, and I am sure I shouldn't be posting here, but I am needing to reach out and see if anyone else's LO has experienced this. I worry that she will dehydrate herself and start having seizures. I worry that she doesn't have the neurological signals needed to signal hunger. Yet, she is gaining weight. I am torn. Does anyone have any advise?
Thanks so much for reading this.
Re: Anyone have experience???
The good news is she is gaining weight. 18 oz is at the low end of the range for BM fed babies and babies tend to eat less when they are teething.
What is concerncing is that that she has a high gag reflex, which could indicate something else. I would seek out a second opinion with another GI and perhaps ask about a barium swallow study and an upper GI series. I would hold off on the endocrinolgist until she is older. We just went to one (my daughter is about a month younger than yours) and beyond the standardized tests that our state runs at birth, there wasn't much he could do and wanted to wait and see where she is a year old.
Thank you for your responses.
Auntie: She does sometimes do a few mins on the breast (very sporatic), so she may be doing well with emptying (sometimes I pump afterwards, and-I know this is not accurate, but normally I have equal amounts in both breasts, and if she feeds well, I sometimes have a few ounces short in the one she feed off). Thank you for not thinking I was nuts by the way (although, her not eating seriously is driving me batty).
Dcmetro: Thank you- I will be checking in to another GI specialist. Good to know that endo is maybe a resource for later on.
I thought the second one was going to be WAY easier than the first..... HAH.
My nephew is almost 5 and he is an extremely picky eater and has been since day 1. He literally will only eat cheese pizza from one ceratin place, strawberry Eggo waffles, chicken stips, and chocolate milk. He will go for days without eating if these items aren't available. He is hungry but just can't seem to force himself to eat anything else. Once in a while he will attempt to try something new but gags.
His Ped says that even though he is on the very lowest range of weight for his age as long as he gains weight he's ok. They also always check his blood to make sure his nutrition levels are ok.
I assume she was full term?
Morgan never got to where she would eat more than 4 oz at a time and she would sometimes take over an hour just to eat that. We played with a lot of bottles and a lot of nipples. Maybe she isn't liking that combination?
As for solids, we tried at the normal intervals and we tried cereal as well, once a week or so starting around 6 months, she was 10 months before she could even begin to eat purees and in the last month started to eat people food. She just could not get the concept of how to swallow.
We for sure thought #2 would be easier lol, no such luck!
Also GI's can be great or meh. The one M sees did an endoscopy jsut to check everything out, the one P saw before didn't do anything and puked cupfuls up a day while on prevacid.
GL and follow your gut instinct.