Hi there
I'm really worried about my LO who is 16 (nearly 17) weeks as his feed intake is reducing. He was always taking 6oz every 3.5/4 hours but now he is refusing to feed, or taking smaller volumes between 2/5oz. Often the 5oz feed won't be taken until around 15.00 and his other feeds are more like 2oz.
I have tried feeding him more regularly, especially when he takes a small feed, but he's completely uninterested and just refuses, pulls away from the bottle and cries.
I have tried changing bottles, teat size, feeding him in a quiet and/or dark room but nothing makes a difference. We've also tried teething gels & granules in case his gums are hurting.
Our routine has now had to completely change from EASY to AESYA since he wakes up at 7/7.30am and refuses a feed. He has a small 2oz dream feed (he just won't take anymore than this), another night feed sometimes at 1am (which is also small), though most of the time it's around 3am (which is a larger 5oz). If he feeds at 1am, he will then have another feed between 4/5am which is also small.
Even if he's had a 3am NF, he won't feed again till closer to 9am and then fusses and takes a couple of oz.
I have also posted on the NW board with regards to our routine which has been reviewed and seems to look okay. If we don't DF, he wakes between 12/1am and again at 4/5am and we are still in the same situation with his day feeds.
Reflux and tongue tie has been ruled out. His weight is very slowly increasing but he's starting to drop from 25th to 09th centile so I'm getting really worried about him and where we are going so wrong. We had really struggled to establish bottle feeding as he was in SCBU and tube fed, and has been in hospital a few times since and also tube fed. He's been out of of hospital now for 2 months.
He doesn't sleep well and now he doesn't feed well and I'm in tears nearly every day as I feel like we are failing to get anything right :-(
I don't know what else to try to get him to feed regulary, or should we just follow his lead now and wait for him to demand feeds even if that is every 5 hours for example? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated