Our 3 week old daughter, in the past week or so, has started acting like she is hungry (rooting, sucking on hands, crying, etc) and then rejecting the bottle. She will cough, spit it out, and sometimes spit up. I feel so bad because I feel like I am choking her. She will flail around and kick, fighting me trying to feed her. So I'll stop and try to burp her, change her diaper, etc, and she'll still keep acting hungry and we go around and around until I persist with the bottle and she finally takes it. This means I have to hold it firmly in her mouth (not down her throat or anything, but just in the front of her mouth) while she struggles until she latches onto it. It seems like she really is hungry when this happens, because after I finally get her to eat, she calms down and gets sleepy. I'm just confused because I don't know what's wrong. And it seems worse at night, which makes me wonder if it's gas (except I'll try to burp her for like 20 minutes and nothing will happen), but she doesn't stop crying until she finally eats, which makes it seem like she's hungry. I have been wondering if she has thrush. I did have a yeast infection when she was born, and the back half of her tongue is white, and I breastfed her in the hospital for a couple of days before switching to expressing and I have had painful and itchy nipples since the start. Her pediatrician couldn't tell for sure whether she had thrush, but he prescribed the meds anyway and I am going to pick them up today. I hope this makes it better. She HAS been gaining weight.... Anyone else experience anything like this? I was up for 2 hours straight last night at one point, and so frustrated trying to get her to be happy that I ended up crying and my husband took her out into the living room to give me a break.

My LO will still do this occassionally- I'll try to feed her and she'll cry or act like she's not hungry anymore, but once I stand up and rock her she'll latch right onto the bottle. Not sure if maybe she's just not in a comfy position and trying to tell me? She rarely does it anymore- but when she was a NB she did it often... I would try, and she would wriggle or squirm or push the bottle out with her tongue- but continue to act hungry- and I would have to offer the bottle a few times before she would finally latch and drink it all down. I know it can be frustrating- and not really sure WHY they sometimes do this? But just keep offering and give her a bit to latch. I would also try moving the bottle back and forth in her mouth a bit as that seemed to work best for our LO to recognize and latch. Now, she see's the bottle and she'll open her mouth when she's hungry! LOL.

Sorry I don't have the answer... our LO also has liked to suck on her hand since she was very little as well. So somtimes I mistook that for hunger. She still sucks on things anytime they are near her mouth she grabs... whether her bib, or my finger etc... but she isn't necessarily hungry when she does this. Maybe it's calming for her???

Best of luck! And know it will get better

Mayb try some infacol before the feed help bring up n e wind if n e?

My LO would do that at my breast when it was coming too fast for him.

Have you tried a slower teat flow? My lo was like this when I tried to move her up to the next teats 3+ so I changed it straight back and she was fine