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Oh sweetie, I have been there.

First, how much is she actually eating in a day? And how much at each feed?

Re: throwing up. D only ever had major throwing up episodes when we were on Pediasure. We went off and he stopped.

Are they pretty sure about the milk? We ended up mixing BM with Enfamil AR which is already thickened (with rice cereal). It worked really well for us.

Just for comparison, Dylan almost never ate more than 18 oz in a day and for tr longest time only 2 oz per feeding. We had the best luck feeding him frequently and we did a dream feed before our bedtime until he was a year. He is smallish still, but totally fine. And now he drinks like 10 oz at bedtime (although still not much during the course of a day). I never would have believed it would get better.

Oh and last, Prevacid was the best med for us and it helped to take it twice a day.

We're also having feeding issues, though a bit different from yours. He is also working through trying reflux meds. This sounds strange, but I've noticed burping before feeding helps him be more willing to take the breast or bottle. It is by no means fail-proof, but there have been times where he has completely refused a bottle (screaming and pushing it away after a few sucks), then gulped it down after letting out a huge burp. It might be at least worth a try?

I'm sorry you're having these problems! Is she at all ready to eat some milk/formula from a spoon? It might be less aggravating to her reflux, because she probably swallows some air when she drinks from a bottle.

Do you think it could be a feeding/oral aversion? If you think there's any chance of that, try to get a referral to OT/feeding therapy. Good luck with GI

@littleredhairedgrl: Was it your pediatrician or the GI who said to wait on solids? Our pediatrician initially wanted us to hold off on solids, but our GI was the one who decided to give them a try to see if it helped. Our LO is on Prevacid (still at 2 years old) and it has helped a lot, we have also gone in for several scopes due to esophagus issues, so we work closely with the GI and a pediatric allergist. They might have a better idea of what is best for your child.

I will say that my daughter didn't' double her birth weight until after she turned 1, but now at 2 she's so much better and in the 60% for weight, so there is hope! Just keep pushing for answers. We were on Gerber Goodstart and then Allimentum and they both helped some, it was decided my milk was too "rich" for her tummy so we switched to FF full time, I was desperate to try anything to help her stop throwing up.

@littleredhairedgrl: We started with an x-ray drinking the barium stuff, where they showed she had severe reflux (able to see it on the screen.) They followed up with a scope and a flex sig (baby colonscopy) and they diagnosed her with EE (eosinophilic esophagitis) which is essential white blood cells in her esophagus that should not be there. These are caused by allergies.

We then went to the allergist around 8 months (it took several months to get to this point) and he said she had a nut and egg allergy, however we had not exposed her to either yet, so it did not make sense as to why she had these cells. We did a mix of medicine to finally get her cell count to zero (wejsut got her latest results back yesterday and she's there.) The allergist cleared her off all allergiest at 1 year old.

I'm a strong fighter for doing what you think is necessary for your child. I can't tell you how many people told us we were "being first time parents" or "overreacting" it wasn't until I made my pediatrician refer us to the GI and he was able to see with his own eyes that something was seriously wrong.

It's been a long 2 years, but they finally have answers, it is not EE because she has no allergies, it is a severe case of acid reflux that she never outgrew, it was so bad it was causing these white blood cells to come up from her stomach and make a home in her esophagus due to the "welcoming environment" (sorry for the book!) feel free to wall me if you have any questions!

Oh man I am so so sorry and I can absolutely relate! We went through feeding refusal with our LO and it was the most stressful thing I've ever dealt with in my entire life. And everyone telling me "don't worry, babies won't starve themselves, she'll eat when she's hungry! just calm down!" made me rage so hard because MOST babies won't starve themselves. But mine would and did. So eff off. Ahem.

I have a very long story (and wrote a bunch of posts about it if you wanted to look at my posts from a few months ago) but the short version is:

It was an allergy and/or reflux. I think more the allergy than the reflux. We had her on zantac then switched to prevacid but the thing that seemed to help the most was putting her on nutramigen. Within 2 weeks of going on nutramigen we went from having to feed her every single meal while she was asleep to being able to feed her awake for every single meal. (I was combo feeding when this started and did an elimination diet but in the end for a lot of reasons I gave up and switched to formula).

Now when I say she started eating awake that does not mean that the problem was solved. She absolutely had developed an aversion to eating (and YES that is absolutely possible!! I have talked to GI specialists and nicu nurses and our ped and they all agree it IS and that IS what we are now dealing with) so she was and is still a very fussy eater. At first she would eat willingly but only when she was swaddled and tired and ready for a nap but not TOO tired, and only in our bedroom in the glider with the fan on and the white noise on and no other noise or people in the room and she'd only eat from me. And even then a lot of times I'd have to rock her until she was very drowsy and extremely calm and only then would she eat.

It has gotten steadily better (some plateaus, some leaps and bounds) and now 4 months later she will eat pretty much any time as long as she is hungry (I found that a 4 hours schedule works MUCH better for her than a 3 hr schedule) and as long as there isn't anyone else in the room. She lets my husband feed her breakfast and thats it. But it's progress.

One thing I found that helped is warming the bottle-- she seems to take it better that way.

Another thing that has worked for her (and this is the HARDEST THING EVER) is to not force it. I cried so many days when we didn't even make it to 20 ounces because I was so stressed about it, but the truth is that the more I tried to force and push her into eating the more wary she became. (Now this was only true once we addressed the underlying issue. before that if I didn't force and trick she wouldn't eat at all. This only worked when she was willingly eating regularly, but just not the amounts I wanted). I had to look at it as a long game, not a short game. In the long run she does better if I don't force it. That means some days she still only eats 21 ounces. But more days now she eats 24-28. If she only wants 2 ounces, okay I'll try again in a few hours. But believe me I know how hard it is because being scared your kid won't eat is just the WORST.

@littleredhairedgrl: Like Mae, my LO also developed a feeding aversion....I still don't totally know why, but it's probably a combination of her tongue and lip ties + tight jaw from a traumatic birth made it difficult for her to open her mouth to eat, even from a bottle...PLUS by 3 months she was refusing to eat altogether and then had bloody stool and we realized she had MSPI.

Also like Mae's baby, my LO would not eat awake...until 8-9 months old! I seriously thought she would NEVER drink awake, but she eventually did. She was also *very* late to being interested in solids and I was really worried she would have issues for life, but sometime around 13 months, it was like a switch flipped and she's eaten just fine ever since and is not "delayed" with solids like I feared she would be.

Also, from month 2 to month 5, LO rarely every broke more than 18 oz a day. Finally around 5 months old, I started feeding her more ounces when she was totally asleep and she starting taking it. It was my devious way of getting her oz up for the day. Once her stomach got used to the extra oz, she started drinking 5-6 oz bottles (still asleep) with no issues. She would just drain them.

At her 1 month apt, LO was 50% for weight. At 2 months, 36% for weight. At 3 months 28% for weight. At 4 months 24% for weight....

and then at 5 months--back up to 34% for weight and by a year, LO is 40% for weight!

SO it took a while, but eventually she got back to "normal".

@littleredhairedgrl: nope, not adding in extra calories and although her weight was dropping in %, she was still gaining each time we went, so the doctor wasn't tooooo concerned, although I spend every.single.day obsessing about how much I could get LO to eat and my husband would even text throughout the day and ask, "how many oz is she at now?" which just added to the panic because often by 5 pm, my answer would be: 12 (!)

We fed her every 4 hours overnight until she was 6 months old and she'd started to gain well. And we still gave her 1 night feeding until she was a year.

We only got to 18 oz with those night feeds, because during the day she would hardly drink at all. Usually only 5-6 oz from 8am-6pm...the rest would be while she was sleeping at night.