Baby won’t Eat!

Hello and Welcome Arburchett,

It sounds like your baby is in pain from her reflux. Is she on any meds? My first refluxer was never treated properly and she was miserable until she finally outgrew it at 9 months. But, thankfully my second refluxer was treated with a good dose of Prevacid and he did great on it. His pain was gone and he began to eat without a fuss. Please read up on PPI meds and talk to the GI about putting her on one, or raising her dose if she is on one already. The right medication and the right dose really can turn things around.

You can read about PPI meds for infant reflux at http://www.marci-kids.com

Also, be sure to look at Laura’s intro link (stickied in the Introduce Yourself Forum). It has lots of valuable information that may help you.

Sometimes in addition to reflux our babies are MSPI (Milk/Soy Protein Intolerant). What forumla is she on?

Good luck and glad you found us.

you might just have to fight for higher dose…

http://www.marci-kids.com

Or, at LEAST 3mgs of PPI per kilo…

Aburchett (sorry I don’t know your name),

Welcome to the forum. I really feel for you. Unfortunately, we were one of the unlucky ones who developed severe feeding problems and a feeding aversion from the reflux. Hailey was always difficult to feed, but stopped eating willingly at 8 weeks old. After that it was impossible to feed her- she would arch, and scream, and cry, kick, hit the bottle away- and we got into a terrible pattern of sleep feeding b/c that was the only way she would eat. She could go for almost a whole day on just a few ounces, and even those she wouldn’t take willingly. I’m not telling you this to scare you, but I wish that we could have done something different to prevent things (if that would be possible, I don’t know).

Here’s the advice that I can offer:

1. Don’t force feed. I know that seems impossible when they don’t want to eat, but forcing them to eat while crying and refusing by shoving the bottle in actually makes the oral aversion worse.

2. Try to get her on the MAXIMUM dose of meds that she can have. Marci-kids has some guidelines and they’re definitely higher than the conservative amount that most docs like to give. How much is she getting now, and what form is it in? If the prevacid is the solutab, you have to give it on an empty stomach and follow it up with a meal 30 minutes later to make it work. I know that timing meals can be impossible with a baby that doesn’t want to feed, so zegerid might be an option for you to consider. It’s omeprazole, the same active ingredient found in prilosec, but you don’t have to time meals. If your doctor won’t go any higher, and you feel she’s still in pain, you might want to print out the marci-kids information, including the part that says which doctors are on the team, as well as the dosing memo for doctors on the left hand top corner link.

3. What kind of other symptoms does you baby have? Does she choke, sputter while feeding, vomit alot, have trouble sleeping etc.? You might want to consider other testing to make sure that there are no additional problems- some to consider are an upper GI (to look for structural abnormalities), an endoscopy to look for any damage or allergies, or a modified barium swallow- NOT the same as an upper GI- to look at how your daughter swallows and to make sure that she is not aspirating. Given the feeding problems, I would personally ask at least for a feeding study including a modified barium swallow. These are done by speech-language pathologists or OTs who specialise in feeding, and they can identify if there are any swallowing/feeding issues like aspiration, weak anatomy of the mouth/jaw, delayed bolus formation, incoordinated suck-swallow-breathe. They can also make recommendations to correct some of these things if they are identified.

4. Make sure that your doctor understands that uncontrolled reflux is a serious issue EVEN if the baby is gaining weight. Our doctors never were concerned for this reason, and by the time we got the right medical attention it was too late.

I hope this doesn’t stress you out further. Believe me, I understand about the stress of feeding problems and the impact it has on your life and your marriage. The sooner you can get things sorted out, the better to prevent further feeding problems. Good luck.

Good luck with the GI study and please keep us posted.

if he doesnt improve you may consider switching to prevacid. a lot of babies do better on it than they do on prilosec (same as zegerid)

Hailey did much better on prevacid than prilosec, but I think it was also because we were doing compounded prilosec. 4-6 months was a hard time for us as well, but hopefully you can get the symptoms under control. Can you try mylanta before a feeding to see if that helps to soothe things a bit?

My ped assured me from birth to age 2 months that the fact that Hailey only sucked for a minute and then pulled off was because I had an overactive letdown and the milk was “literally shooting down her throat so that she’s getting a full feeding in a few seconds”. Neither myself nor my husband could help but laugh at at that one. I did have OAL, but Hailey’s pulling on and off, and only agreeing to suck until a letdown were not due to the OAL but due to the reflux. She was gaining well, and he always used that as a barometer of how things were, but I knew that things weren’t right despite this. She was gaining because she was in so much pain that she was BF around the clock to try to soothe herself, even though she didn’t want eat and pulled off all the time. She wanted the comfort. He finally stopped with this theory when Hailey refused to nurse or bottle feed at 2 months old. Her weight gain slowed and then stopped altogether. I kept pumping, and could see that there was no way that she was getting her fill that quickly, even though I know that she was more skilled at extracting the milk then the pump.

I hope that you can get answers and help soon.