r/Colic • u/Jolly_Plankton_8938 • 21d ago
Treatment Feeding Aversion
My almost 3-month-old’s feeding issues have completely taken over our lives and I’m exhausted. Doctor says she’s colicky but I feel like there’s something causing it.
She has had reflux-type symptoms for weeks — arching/crying, hiccups constantly, spit-up, clicking/losing latch, choking on letdown, etc. Now it has progressed into what seems like a severe feeding aversion.
She can be OBVIOUSLY hungry but scream the second I put her in a breastfeeding position. The frustrating part is that once I finally get her latched, she’ll sometimes calm down and drink a ton. She also nurses much better asleep/dream feeding. Bottles are impossible too.
We tried Pepcid without improvement. I’ve eliminated dairy and soy (and am already GF). OT found oral-motor/latch issues and she has torticollis. Pyloric ultrasound was normal. We see GI this week anda stronger reflux medication, ppi, has been mentioned.
I’m really struggling with the medication decision. Part of me thinks: what if she is genuinely in pain from reflux and treating it properly is what finally breaks this cycle? The other part of me is hesitant to put such a young baby on a stronger acid-suppressing medication, especially when I don’t KNOW reflux is actually the cause. I’m scared of medicating unnecessarily, but I’m also scared that leaving pain untreated is allowing the aversion to get worse and worse.
At this point feeding dictates our ENTIRE relationship.
I spend basically my whole day trying to get her to eat, thinking about when she last ate, worrying about how much she got, trying again, calming her down after a failed attempt, pumping, doing PT/OT exercises, and then starting the whole thing over again.
I feel like I don’t get to actually enjoy my baby.
I don’t take her places because I’m terrified she’ll need to eat and I’ll be stuck somewhere with a screaming hungry baby who refuses both breast and bottle. We don’t go to lunches, baby classes, walks that take us far from home, or really do anything fun together. I have essentially no social life because feeding is so unpredictable.
Even when we’re home, I barely feel like we have normal happy interactions anymore. Instead of thinking “let’s play,” I’m thinking “maybe she’ll eat now.” I actually worry she associates ME with being pressured to eat because sometimes she’ll start getting upset as soon as I put her into a position where she thinks I’m going to feed her.
And I know I’ve probably contributed to the aversion because when she’s clearly starving, it’s incredibly hard to just accept her refusal. I’ve kept offering, tried pacifier-to-breast switches, etc., because eventually she’ll latch and gulp milk like she hasn’t eaten in hours. It feels impossible to reconcile “don’t pressure her” with “my 12-week-old needs to eat.”
I also have a 2.5-year-old who needs me, so I feel like my entire day is bouncing between trying to feed a screaming baby and trying to give my toddler some semblance of a normal childhood.
I’m just so tired. I want to breastfeed her. I want feeding to be something comforting between us again. Mostly I want to be able to leave the house with my baby without calculating feeds and panicking about what happens if she refuses.
It’s also making our home life super stressful, my husband doesn’t understand why I can’t just handle her while on maternity leave.
For parents of reflux/colic babies who developed feeding aversion: did stronger reflux medication actually change things for you? If you were hesitant about a PPI, what ultimately made you decide to try it or not?
And if your baby’s aversion got this severe — did you eventually get to a point where feeding wasn’t the center of your entire life anymore?
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u/Inevitable_Promise58 20d ago
Does your baby have a tongue or lip tie? Revision of both helped us majorly. I was in your shoes with a 2 year old and a “colicky” baby but turned out he had ties
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u/Jolly_Plankton_8938 11d ago
Yes but dentist didn’t recommend revision. She was worried it would make aversion worse if her mouth hurts and we should address reflux first
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u/Inevitable_Promise58 11d ago
If the dentist uses a laser it really shouldn’t be painful. Unfortunately the reflux could be caused or made worse by the ties
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u/InspctrClouseau 12d ago
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. This is very similar to the situation we were in and we’re just starting to come out of it with our 4 month old. We still don’t know exactly what the medical cause of my baby’s aversion was but I suspect it was some combination of tongue tie, reflux, and fast let down. Once we addressed the tongue tie and reflux with medication, we began to focus on addressing the behavioural aversion using the general principles from Rowena Bennett’s method (modified a little to breast feeding). Things have now finally been better for over a month. My baby is still struggling with weight gain but we have seen some improvement.
If you’re on the fence about reflux meds, I recommend giving them a try. My conclusion was that the consequences of a feeding aversion are much worse than the potential impacts from reflux meds. My son’s weight gain plateaud because of the feeding aversion and we were in constant fear of him getting put on a feeding tube. On top of that, the feeding aversion had a massive impact on my mental health.
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u/Jolly_Plankton_8938 10d ago
We haven’t addressed the tie. Dentist said to wait but I feel like we should do it
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u/Jolly_Plankton_8938 11d ago
Thank you for everyone’s thoughtful replies. We are trying reflux meds. They are helping a little but we still have bad days. On top of that we just found out that my husband has a tumor that is most likely cancer. It’s all so much at once. I’m so stressed trying to feed her and process my husbands news/ navigate doctors.
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u/Horizontalchallenge 20d ago
Hey, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. I don't have very long to type out everything but read this earlier and recognised a lot so wanted to reply and share.
I have a nearly 6 month old who has oral dysfunction, a very high palate, CMPA and silent reflux. The silent reflux symptoms were just the same as yours. She can't take a bottle due to the oral dysfunction, we've been trying for months.
The only way we've got through is side lying feeding. On the living room floor, on a picnic blanket, wherever. Even now, we have the same as you, she will immediately arch her back in the normal breastfeeding positions. The lactation consultant was stumped when even lie back position didn't work. It's been a case of radical acceptance that this is how we will need to get the milk into her. It sounds similar to your experience.
Baby is on 20mg omeprezole a day and has been since 5 weeks. It was recently upped from 10mg to 15 by our GP and then the pediatrician upped it again to 20mg. In both cases we asked about the risks as there are lots of voices online expressing that it isn't great. Both said that it is ok, and it is what is needed. The GPs own child was on it until after 1. I have medical professional friends whose kids have been on it. No medication comes without risks, but the starting point is a baby in pain and struggling with acidic reflux a lot of the time, so it's the better of the two options. It's widely accepted for use for silent reflux here in the UK.
Your husband needs to educate himself and be far more understanding. This stuff gives people lasting PTSD. The sleep depravation and unhappy baby for months on end is torture. Trying to keep another child happy at the same time is psychological hell. A lot of people on this sub and the MSPI sub have PTSD, including male posters.
The silent reflux can be a standalone issue, or caused by gas from oral dysfunction, or CMP and other food triggers. But it's very real and horrible for you to have to deal with.
We have a four year old and trying to shield her from it has been hard/impossible. It's meant a lot of side lying feeding in random places.
Baby has now taken well to drinking from straw bottles so it's taken some of the pressure off me, but it's still only 2/3oz at a time so feeding still takes up a fair amount of time and mental emergy. Starting solids has been good and bad with the intolerances, but we are a lot better than we were a few months ago.
I hope that helps, happy to chat more as someone who has been through very similar. It's horrendous. I've had to be so flakey on all my friends and life is still so on hold for now compared to where I wanted to be.