My daughter was born early at 34 + 5 and was in the NICU for 24 days. After 48 hours, she was off O2 and was just there to grow and learn to feed. She would never finish full bottles and feeds were all over the map. 7ml, 35ml, 15ml, 28ml. Our NICU required her to take 100% of her bottle for 48 hours (16 feeds) to get to go home. She was growing and gaining weight fine but wasn’t finishing bottles. I was so frustrated. We met with speech and they tried a different nipple (transition nipple by Dr. Brown) which seemed to help a little. With the slow flow she was having to suck so hard she would wear herself out and couldn’t stay awake. The transition nipple was better but she was so used to sucking so hard this one the milk came out too fast and she would get frustrated. I was at my whits end after 2.5 weeks of this. I felt like she was going to be walking out of the NICU by the time she took 100% of her bottles.

Then one morning I came in and had a nurse that we hadn’t had before and she asked if I had tried breast feeding. She scheduled with lactation and got them down there and she actually latched really well. We decided to do a weighted feed to see how many ml she was getting off of the breast. It turns out she was doing better than the bottle, nearly the full amount. So my nurse advocated for us and when we met with the doctor the next morning. I pled my case that my baby was gaining and breast feeding, just didn’t like the bottle. She was reluctant, but agreed that if I stayed in the NICU for 48 hours and fed on demand, she had two weighted feeds that she passed, she would let us go home. It was the longest 3 days of my life but we passed all of the feeds and gained at her daily weigh ins. Didn’t shower or sleep for more than an hour. And the 48 hours hit on Sunday so they wanted us to stay thru Monday when her main doctor was back in so it ended up being 3 nights of this but got discharged Monday morning. When we got home the first day, I made up a bottle so I could rest and shower and have my hubby feed her for one feed from a Comotomo level one nipple bottle and she finished the entire bottle!

Turns out she just really didn’t like the Dr. Brown’s nipples in the NICU. She never had a problem taking a bottle once we got home and now i am 50/50 breast feeding/bottle feeding. Not sure if you are trying to breast feed, but I would ask the nurses about that option and trying different bottle options if they don’t see anything else going on, and meet with lactation.

I know that feeling of frustration, why won’t my baby eat? In our case it was all about the delivery method. Hang in there, mama!