Baby Reject Formula, pls help!

M

mavislohsp

Registered User
Hi,

I wonder is there anyone experience the same thing as me. My baby is going to 4 months in 3 days time. I exclusively breast feed my baby in the first 3 months. After that I mix with formula trying to switch him to formula. However, He rather not drinking the formula for 2 consecutive meals ( or just take 2 oz and last him till the next meal, which I breast feed. Currently I will breast feed him for morning, pump out my milk for 11am feed, formula for afternoon, breast feed for evening and formula for night feed, however, these days he totally reject formula at night, which i have no choice but to give him breast feed and put him back to his cot.
My problems are:

1) He has not poo for the past 3 days, going to 4 days. He did not show any discomfort and is playful as usual. Shall I change the formula? or shall I bring him to see pediatrician? He has no issue on poo at all when I exclusively breast feed him.

2) He seems like doesn't like the formula. However, this is the formula I have been feeding him before my milk come in. He would rather don't drink or drink very little. Can anyone advice me on this?

3) He is very easily distracted by things or sounds around him, which make feeding him a touch job too. I tried compression but he will pull out immediately if I did that. keep changing position also didn't work with him, he will just keep sucking the nipple and pull out in a few seconds time, which is more like playing with me.

Can someone give me some advice please? Thank you!
 
hi mavislohsp, here's how i see your "problems":

1) don't change the formula - it takes the body a few days to get used to the "new" formula and eventually there should be poo. if you are worried, i would not give your baby so much formula and give him more breast milk so that the poo is "normal" - slowly increase the amount of formula, making sure you monitor the poo as you increase the amount of formula so that the amount of poo is "normal"

2) when given a choice my baby would also prefer breast milk...particularly if i am feeding him the milk (he can smell the breast milk from me) - so what i do is either feed him as much as he wants, and if it is extremely little then have my husband feed him (he doesn't smell of breast milk) and my baby will drink the formula, because he is actually hungry -but with daddy he knows he does not have a choice.

3) babies will get more and more distracted as they grow up - it's normal.what i do with my baby is just to make sure he is really hungry before feeds rather than feeding him on a fixed schedule, like say, every 3 hours one feeding. for me, whent hey are hungry they will eat, if they miss a meal it is OK because they will eat more the next meal - i feel that this is the best way to make sure children eat at their meal times - i've done this for my 3yr old, 1 yr old and currently with my 3week old. some people would say i'm a bit too relaxed though...anyhow, it works for me.

hope this helps a bit! :)
 
Does the baby reject the formula or the bottle? Have you (or someone else) tried giving him a bottle of expressed milk?
 
Hi lesliefu & Gataloca,

Thank u for sharing. Yes, I think for the meantime I shall switch back to breast milk until he pass motion again.

It had been consecutive 2 nights that he rejected formula. It used to be my pump out breast milk. We always have daddy to feed him at night. Daddy said should just put him back to his cot n let him sleep, but I worried he wouldn't be able to get through the night n end up waking up at midnight for milk which I dread off, so I always give in to baby and offer breast milk if he reject formula feed by daddy.

Bottle breast milk baby is happy to take it, but bottle formula is an headache. Nonetheless, we did take sometimes to train him bottle, he reject it in the beginning.

Another funny thing is, if we r going out, baby will have no issue on formula. He would finish most of his bottle.

Another thing I noticed is the evening feed is always the smoothest one. He will keep drinking n not playing at all, which I guess he is tired for the day. Unlike the morning n afternoon feed, always playing n just drink abt 10-15mins.
 
Four months is the time that nearly all babies are very distracted while feeding. Rather than enjoying long leisurely feeds they are all done in a few minutes and want to move on with life.

There is a good article which explains how baby's development may affect the breastfeeding is Breastfeeding as Baby Grows at http://breastfeeding.hypermart.net/development.html

I would suggest that your baby doesn?t like the formula as much as he likes the breast milk. And now that he is four months old he is able to express that dislike in a way that he was unable to do when he was only a few days old.

Although not normally recommended I?ve known mothers manage to transition babies from breast milk to formula by adding the two together. First you add just a small amount of formula (say 20 mls) to the breast milk and as the baby accepts this slowly increase more and more formula until the baby is drinking mainly formula with a bit of breast milk added. Remember it is important to mix up the formula with water first before adding it to the breast milk.

Best wishes,
SARAH

Sarah Hung IBCLC
www.lotuslactation.com
 
Hi lesliefu, Gataloca & sarah,

I have tried feeding my baby in a dark nursery room, it seems to work for him, at least he willing to take the milk for longer time. However, my baby is still not passing motion yet. Yesterday I noticed there are very little poo in my baby's diapers, really very little as compared to his normal poo. It looks like it came out together with his fart. Can I considered that he has poo? Today again he didn't poo. I wonder should I continue observe or approach a pediatrician?

Anyone, any advice is appreciated. Thank you!
 
so how many days consecutively has your baby not pooed? i know that this is not the right thing to do - but when this happened to my baby (1st kid) I watered down the formula so that she'd get more water when drinking instead of drinking plain water (Which isn't recommended for young babies)...so for 2oz I'd only use 1oz formula and 2oz water instead of 2oz formula and 2oz water.
 
Day 5. I hv stop feeding him formula since day 3 he did not poo. Solely breast milk. I hv just bought him to c a doctor. Doctor has prescribed some med for him to take, hopefully he will poo in coming 2 days. Thank u lesliefu, I shall try ur approach in future if I feed him formula.
 
My baby sometime would not poo for 5 days, but he was exclusively breastfed, so I don't really know what is normal for formula fed babies... can you try giving him some diluted apple or prune juice?
 
Hi Gataloca,

I think I shall breast feed my bb for now. Not thinking of switching to formula for the meantime. Unless for top up. When I exclusively breast feed, my bb at least poo once a tine. However after mixing with formula, the poo started to delay.

I did read others forum, there r baby who exclusively breast feed only poo after 10 days.

I shall keep monitor my baby progress n thank u so much for all the advices fr everyone!
 
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