Thrush... Who Knew!?

I used to get stressed about Adelyn not wanting to nap very much.

That was until she started to refuse to eat.

I think one of the most stressful things for a mother is hearing your child cry from hunger and seeing her refuse to eat. It's horrible and so frustrating! You want to reason with your child but then you remember she is only 9 weeks old. I think we are starting to get things worked out but time will tell.

About two weeks ago, Adelyn started refusing to breast feed and would only take bottles. We have had to do so many bottles because of my breast feeding issues that she just got used to the faster, easier flow of the bottles and preferred to eat only out of those. So since then I've been pumping and feeding her breast milk from the bottle.

Well about 4-5 days ago, she randomly refused to eat from the bottle. After a 30 minute scream fest, we chalked it up as her being in a bad mood or having a tummy ache. Well this started to happen more and more. She would act hungry, suck a few times and then scream at us. She'd then suck a little more, and the scream fests would continue. I called the doctor asking about acid reflux and the symptoms didn't match. She gave me a few bottle feeding suggestions and told me to call back if it got worse.

So we tried lots of different things. Warming the milk up, keeping the milk cold, switching up bottles, switched to a faster flow nipple, feeding in a quiet room, feeding outside, swaddling her up while feeding, etc. We even tried a bottle of formula to see if she wasn't liking the taste of my breast milk. All of our efforts were refused by our little lady. She would eventually take at least 2-3 oz at each feeding so I wasn't too stressed until yesterday.

Yesterday was a rough day. EVERY SINGLE FEEDING was a crying battle. (For both Adelyn and myself towards the end of the day!). I just knew something wasn't right. A baby is not supposed to cry while eating! So last night we called the doctor on-call for my pediatrician. She asked a bunch of questions including one asking if Adelyn's tongue was white. A white tongue? I had noticed that before but thought it was milk residue. We looked again and there it was- a tongue that had a white looking film over it. The doctor told me she thought Adelyn had thrush which can make sucking painful. It made so much sense! We could tell there was immediate pain when she ate but couldn't figure out why! The bad news was that it was Saturday night so the doctor couldn't call in a prescription without seeing it. She kindly told us to "limp through the night" and go to an urgent care the next morning to confirm the diagnosis and get a prescription.

What's crazy is that Adelyn actually slept all the way through the night for the first time! We thought she'd be up every few hours but I guess her rough day wore her out too so she decided to skip out on her 3am feeding she likes to wake us up for. After eating at 5, she went right back down and slept until 7:15. Craziness.

Well we took her to the doctor this morning to confirm, yes, she has thrush in her mouth. We got a prescription that we have to squirt into her mouth 4 times a day. Feedings are still pretty rough right now since we just started the meds today. This last feeding she only took a little over 2 oz after working with her for 45 minutes. It's painful for the whole family. BUT it's a relief to know there is a reason for the fussiness. There is peace in knowing it will get better.

It's almost laughable about how many feeding issues I've had in these 9 weeks. I feel like I will be an expert to any future mommy who is having any sort of breast feeding problem AND NOW bottle feeding problem. Between my researching on the Internet and the zillions of phone calls I've made to other moms, I feel like I know so much about feeding troubleshooting.

But then I remind myself, "Polly, Adeyln is alive. She is healthy and growing great. She's a happy baby (most of the time) and is doing just fine. Something is going the right way, right?"Hang in there, little lady. This too shall pass.