Darius’ Feeding issues has been resolved for a few days now.

One night as I was preparing a milk feed and wondering whether it would be a battle again, it suddenly dawned on me.

What if it’s the stirring? Would anything change if I do not stir the milk in circular motion but just gently scrape the sides to break up the undissolved portions?

Enfalac needs stirring too as if we just shake the bottle gently, there would still be big lumps of milk. I learnt from antenatal class that stirring vigorously will introduce air into the bottle but I forgot about that til now.

So I’m the one causing Dar to have gas while feeding? I stirred too much! Even good bottles with air vents can’t help if we were the ones who introduced air into the formula unwittingly.

Who wants to drink something that makes them uncomfortable?

Immediately, I tried the ‘breaking up’ method instead of full stirring and for the first time, Dar finished drinking the milk without needing to burp! He only needed burping after the feed or close to the last 10ml. I was really excited. Is this it? Have we finally found the solution to his reflux/rejecting milk problem?

I told hubby and we tried it out a few more times. It worked mostly and he would finish drinking the milk smoothly in 15 minutes. It only didn’t work on certain times but he’d only start crying due to gas after drinking most of it. Maybe we still stirred a bit too much for those certain times.

Now, I have to take more time to prepare his milk feed because I have to stir the milk so gently and so slowly, poking at the formula powder coagulating at the sides, letting it ‘dance’ up a little, instead of going in a circular motion.

It has worked for a week so far and I’m so glad now that Darius is no longer rejecting feeds due to reflux. He’s fussy in that once he burps, he would cry and reject drinking the formula. When he burps, he also tend to spit up some milk and that always makes him cry out.

A method we have found to get him to stop crying and continue drinking is, feeding him water to wash off the taste after a burp or spit up. Maybe after burping, some stomach acids came up to his mouth and he does not like it. I also let him suckle some water after a feed to wash off the sweet taste as I myself tasted the formula and found it so sweet. Probably Darius is like me, hates sweet stuff.

Another tactic I use to reduce reflux is, initially let him suckle a while, pull out the teat to stop and then let him suckle again, pulling out two three times til he finally suckle properly(does not gulp when drinking). This will make him drink slowly and hence reduce air going in too fast.

I also found that he does not drink the full feed at certain times. Namely, in the morning after he fully wakes up at 8:30am and late afternoon when he wakes up after a 2 hour nap. I think it’s because he has not been expanding his energy during sleep so he does not feel hungry and will reject drinking. These times, he’ll only want to drink about 80-110ml.  Therefore, we will prepare 120ml for these times instead to not waste the formula.

Phew! We have finally solved the problem somewhat and he’s very much happier now, growing chubbier everyday.

I learnt through this that we have to really observe and help him find solutions so he would be less irritable.

I tend to say this to him when I wronged him for being difficult, seemingly to cry for no apparent reason. “对不起哲宇，妈妈不懂”。（Sorry, Darius, mama didn’t know the reason）

Related posts:

1. Drinking Milk from the Straw Since a month back, we started introducing Darius to drink...
2. Stage 3 Formula Milk Concerns We have recently changed from Enfapro A+ (Stage 2) to...
3. Water & Training Cup I read about Pigeon’s Magmag cup (see details here) from...
4. Darius holding his milk bottle Darius started holding his own milk bottle recently at 7.5...
5. Hungry Dar Our little Dar is often hungry, probably due to him...