Nutramigen - Trouble getting daughter to feed

[Terryv]

Hi,

My 5 month old daughter was diagnosed with an allergy to breastmilk last Thursday and the hospital prescribed Nutramigen to replace all feeds. We have managed to get Allie to accept a bottle over the weekend. After a bumpy start, she is much happier with the bottle and drank 9 ounces of juice this evening in one go.

The problem we are having is that she will not drink the Nutramigen, we have tried right through the weekend and the only way she will take any is if it is mixed with banana. We are trying to ease off the banana very slowly but at the moment, we are getting little more than 6 to 7 ounces of milk into her in any 24 hour period. The banana is helping to get her to drink some but is also filling her up at mealtimes more quickly I think. We are making up the shortfall in liquids with baby juice to avoid any dehydration problems but are rather stuck on how we can increase the amount of milk she takes without feeding.

The problem is quite clearly that she really dislikes the taste (the smell alone is enough to turn my stomach !). I am going to try mixing some baby juice in with the milk to see how that go's but if anyone has any other suggestions, I would be most appreciative.

Many thanks,

Terry

[Shdef]

My Ds spend his first weeks in intensive care and a lot of the mums there had to top up the feeds with formula. The formula they used in this hospital was nutramigen because it is the one that causes least allergy.

I saw the babies happily drinking their expressed breastmilk. (most were too weak to breastfeed).

Then the nurses decided that one or two ounce or whatever the amount, wasn't enough so they gave them nutramigen.

It stinks and I wouldn't drink it and none of the babies there did. The mums and the nurses had a really hard time getting that stinky stuff into the babies and it staying there

In Germany we have loads of brands of hypoallergenic formula, every big brand (Nestle, Hipp, Milupa etc) had their own hypoallergenic version. That's what we fed our baby. I don't know where you are but is it possible to change to another formula or add something to nutramigen? Maybe you can check with the ped and ask if it's okay to add baby tea or something to it for the taste


Good Luck!!!

[Terryv]

Hi,

I am not sure whether there are other types of formula we can use (we are in the UK), my wife is going to phone the hospital tomorrow and find out. This has been prescribed so I guess this may be the cheapest brand (and hopefully the stinkiest !)

I cannot describe the taste/smell of that formula, it is truly revolting. We fought and fought with Alyssa to get a few spoonfulls into her and she vomited it straight back up. Mixing it with banana works but its not a way of getting much quantity into her.

I am going to go and mix up some with baby juice in a moment, god knows if it will work, I very much doubt it though.

Thanks for your time.

Terry

[Shdef]

I am in the UK the now and we had to bring all our hypoallergenis formula here from Germany 

Nutramigen costs 25€ (about 17£) in Germany for a packet that would last us 4 days. It is the most expensive brand you can get 


And it still stinks. Let me know if mixing it works, I would check with the HV though before you do that to every bottle.

I have heard that babies who didn't ever drink other milk before drank it and thrived, but babies who had breastmilk previoiusly didn't drink it at all...



Let me know how it works with the juice... Maybe try and introduce it slowly

Like one scoop and a alot aof juice and then two scoops and less juice until you have the proper amounts of scoops and no juice?

[Ennypen]

Hi Terry

There's another formula called Neocate which may be useful to know about. Here's a link.
If you click on the tin of infant neocate on the page it downloads a pdf which may have useful info on it for you and your drs.

http://www.shsweb.co.uk/neocate/prof/info/main.htm

H xx

[taylorbean]

My daughter has a milk allergy so we switched her to soy formula and she does really well with it. We initially went to nutramigen and she didn't like it either, it does have a rather nasty smell.

Soy formula is slightly pricier than regular formula but much cheaper than nutramigen.  I think they recommend nutramigen if there is a soy and milk protein allergy but if it's just milk protein, most people just do soy and it seems to work out.

I would also try to eliminate the juice and go to water if you're worried about dehydration. Juice has a very sweet taste and if you compare the nasty taste of that formula to juice , no wonder your lo doesn't want it. Soy formula tastes fine and smells okay too. Hope it works out for you.

[Terryv]

Hi,

To be honest, I am not entirely sure whether we are dealing with an allergy to milk or to soya as well. I guess given the symptoms they thought it better to take things up a further notch.

We are starting to reduce the strength of the juice so she doesn't get a sweet tooth (can you get this if you dont have any teeth  ). We had to major on the juice tthough as getting the formula in was bordering on impossible. Anyway, the doctors have today changed their minds and said we should wean Allie off breastmilk gradually rather than straight away (absolute conflict with the advice from last Thursday).

Gotta go, little one yelling !

Thanks,

Terry