Anyone's LO just not a big eater?

[GingerNut]

DS is 6 weeks. He had some problems at birth and was in hospital for 4.5 weeks; a lot of the hospital stay was just because he wasn't eating much. He was tube fed for two weeks to start with so it took a while to get him to take a bottle. Plus he has severe reflux, which probably makes him uncomfortable. He's on Zantac and Gaviscon for that though.

He feeds every 3 hours or so, and at the moment he takes 50-70ml per feed, and he's having a total of maybe 420ml (14oz) in 24 hours.

He's on SMA High Energy, so he's getting everything he needs from the tiny quantity he's taking. He's having wet and dirty nappies, he's not dehydrated, and he's putting on about half an oz a day. His doctors aren't concerned, they seem happy enough with how he's doing for now.

Has anyone had a baby like this? I'm wondering will this be a long term thing, or will he start eating more normally at some stage? Should we move away from the high energy formula? He actually took bigger quantities of Aptamil than he is of the high energy one; given much the same weight gain on each, would it be better to give him a 'normal' formula and have him take more, or this one, and less?

[Lolly]

I think you will need to be guided by his Drs for which formula is best to be honest. From a reflux point of view my two both took a lower amount of formula than they *needed* for their size but both thrived weight gain wise.

I did find gaviscon to be pretty useless so we used a reflux formula instead with zantac. What weight is he and what zantac dose? Have they suggested moving to a PPI at all?

Laura

[GingerNut]

He's on 1ml 3 times a day. He was 5.27kg a few days ago.

We started him on Carobel instead of Gaviscon yesterday and he's certainly bringing less up. He was cranky last night and this morning but he's massively overtired, he fights sleep to an unreal degree. I don't know how much of the crankiness or the sleeplessness are due to the reflux. The reflux cough is waking him today, so the Carobel isn't keeping everything down completely.

I want to ask the doc about Losec anyway, it's getting impossible to get the Zantac into him. He gets into such a temper that it takes ages to calm him down afterwards, and he spits half it out anyway, no matter far back in his mouth we get it. We had issues before with DD refusing to let us near her mouth after being on horrible antibiotics for a week. I don't want to do that to DS - he's already not great with the bottle.

We're having a rough day here, DS is only sleeping for 10 minutes at a time and he's pale and red eyed from tiredness, and DD is like a bag of cats because she's starving but she won't eat anything whatsoever. I'm just repeating to myself over and over 'it's just a phase'...

[Charlie_Mom]

Hi Gingernut, I've been dealing with the same issues with my LO over the past 9 months. He has/had reflux, was put on Zantac early on, which he didn't like and spit out most of the time. It also stopped working around 2 1/2 months, so the doctor switched him to Losec once he was 3 months old. Losec worked wonderfully and we've been on it ever since.

The reflux did indeed make a big difference in how much he ate of his formula. He was averaging 60 to 90mls a bottle in the early months, and he didn't enjoy his dreamfeed as it made him uncomfortable afterwards. He never truly slept through the night until as of late once he was firmly established with 3 solid meals a day. He still isn't a big formula fan, but he now averages between 120 and 180mls per bottle. So it does get better! As long as his doctor isn't worried about the weight gain, you kind of just go with it. However I do feel your pain, it's the worse feeling in the world knowing your LO is in discomfort and not sleeping/eating soundly. And so frustrating! Make sure you have some support through all this!

[ENMS]

He gets into such a temper that it takes ages to calm him down afterwards, and he spits half it out anyway, no matter far back in his mouth we get it.

We had the same issue! The only thing that works for us to give him meds is to put them in a bottle and use a y-cut nipple.  Otherwise he gets mad and spits it all out.

[GingerNut]

Had a bit of a breakthrough with the Zantac: now I sneak the syringe in at the corner of his mouth while he's drinking his bottle, and dribble it in gradually till it's gone. He doesn't object as long as it's slow enough to be hidden in the stream of milk. Hurray : ) You need to position yourself and the baby very carefully to manage it (or have a spare set of hands available) but it's great!

Also we're settling into something a bit like a routine (his feeding can still be very unpredictable so it's impossible to be really consistent) and he's a lot more settled. I don't know whether it's the routine or the Carobel, but it's good!