Quick question!

Hailey is probably the “sleep feeder” and “feeding aversion” baby that you’re talking about… thankfully we don’t have many around the site anymore!

Christine described the two pretty well.

Hailey had early feeding signs that things were not going well that were associated with initial breastfeeding kinks, low milk supply, and overactive let down (we were told so many different things depending on who was doing the talking.) We were told it was that on top of colic. The transition was very gradual but she became increasingly harder to feed until she completely stopped eating outright at 8 weeks. The doc was talking about tube feeding, but we noticed that we were able to feed her a little bit but with difficulty when she was asleep (hence the term sleep feeding). For Hailey it was still a struggle, but this was the only way we were able to feed her during most of her first year.

This was because of her feeding aversion- meaning that she had formed a dislike of eating/fear of eating. She learned that eating hurt, and so when most babies learn that nursing/bottle feeding is comfortable, Hailey learned that it causes her pain, and so rather then feel pain, they don’t want to eat. They learn that eating is not pleasurable. Reflux is just one cause of feeding aversions. Others are developmental problems that make eating difficult, sensory issues that make eating unpleasant, prematurity or inability to co-ordinate suck-swallow-breathe. There are many causes, but basically it’s a learned thing that happens because the normal learning process about eating (ie. I’m hungry, I eat, I feel good) is interrupted (i.e. I’m hungry, I eat, I hurt, I don’t want to eat). Some babies are only averse to liquids others, like Hailey, to solids and liquids. HTH.

s&h’s mum2007-5-20 14:41:10