Low volume eating, not getting better

[Anonymous]

I am new here and am just wondering if anyone has any thoughts (or experiences to provide hope). My baby is 11 weeks old, born at 57% for weight down to 11-15% pretty quickly by 2-3 weeks old. She is on prevacid 5mg bid and zantac 0.6 ml once a day. She was diagnosed with reflux and also milk intolerance and is on neocate. On neocate she has stopped the projectile vomiting (also had an ultrasound which was negative) but I am concerned because she only eats about 20 oz a day. She weighed 9 lb 7 oz last week (up 4 oz from a weight check 9 days prior). We are concentrating her calories (new just since last weeks weight check) and I hope that will help because seriously I can’t get her to take more than 2, maybe 3 (once or twice a day if that) at a time. She takes 2 oz pretty easily but then turns her head, bats the bottle away or juts out her tongue. The arching and crying we saw in the beginning with a lot of feeds is much better. She definitely still spits up (with no crying or fuss) especially if she goes in a bouncy seat or carseat too soon after a feed. Occasionally it comes out her nose and that is the only time I really get any crying or arching. also, she eats about every 3 hours when I force her to. If I let her demand feed, I can’t imagine how little she would eat. Otherwise though, a happy baby- smiling, cooing, holds up her head, would sleep through the night if I didn’t wake her to feed.

So my concern is that she was doing 20 oz at 3 weeks old and here we are at the same volume 8 weeks later. Some days I am at my wits end with this. I appreciate heraing from anyone who has been here/done that.

[Anonymous]

I’m not much help with this one, except to say that my younger dd did the same thing. She fought every feeding, never ate more than a few ounces at a time. She was at the 25th percentile at birth and dropped off the charts at one point. She never liked bottles and she hated being fed pureed baby foods. Once we started finger foods, she did much better. It was like she only wanted to eat if she could be in control. Things improved quickly from then. She climbed back onto the charts and she’s held steady around the 50th percentile since then. She’s in the 90th for height, so she’s a skinny little thing, but she’s healthy and happy. I guess my point is that there is hope for improvement, but it might take a while. The longer she is on the prevacid, the more she’ll heal and maybe start eating more.

[hellbennt]

https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=853

this is the link of my welcome/into it’s called

Groupie Intro and it’s loooong, but it’s FULL of info to HELP you!

so read/skim/scroll through it and REFER back to it a lot

so glad you found us!

laura

[Anonymous]

Hello! Yes, been there and still doing that! ; )

My son seemed to have some odd limit about taking more than 2oz at a time. Sometimes we could get him to take 3 but that was always a fight. We even tried feeding him while bouncing him, walking, with a medicine dropper, and at times with the leaf blower b/c the sound distracted him. I can totally relate! He gained very very slowly. He was lucky to gain a pound a month and sometimes took about 6 weeks to gain a pound. He is currently off the charts and is still very tiny. It’s hard (probably harder on you) because you want to see them eat, be satisfied, and grow. I believe my son to be in pain and we have yet to get his meds right. He is currently eating 20 oz a day at 8 months and this is still a fight. He too is on Neocate for GERD they think is driven by MSPI. : ( The good news is that he really likes pureed baby foods. He eats about 12-16 oz of the pureed foods a day. We too track calories but he is way below recommended (about 200 below). We are doing the best we can, using this forum for support, and persistent with the dr’s. We have an appt about every other week and I wont stop until he is better. Keep us updated and good luck!

Also – have you tried Neocate’s flavor packets?

[Author]

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