3 month old refusing to feed

QUESTION:

I need some advice please. My little girl is 3 months old, 6kg and happy alert and as normal as any other baba her age. She is not unwell, to my knowledge, and does not have reflux. BUT of late she flatly refuses to drink some of her bottles of formula. She pushes the teat out with her... tongue, bites the teat, turns her head from side to side to almost get away from it. I have tried feeding at longer stretches of time, feeding with little distraction, etc. Today she drank 150ml at 7:30am and only drank again at 1:30pm, then not much in the afternoon and not much again at 7:30pm before bed. She is not teething, does not have thrush, is not screaming and does not seem to be in pain. Her bottles have been the same since week 3, her teat sizes are right for her age yet she won't eat. Night feeds are fine as are early morning and last feed of the day. But otherwise she refuses to drink. Its like she has forgotten how to drink from a bottle. It sometimes gets to the stage where she is flatly refusing to drink even though I know she is starving and when she finally cottons on that the teat is there waiting, 9 times out of 10 she's too tired to eat and then starts screaming due to tiredness and hunger. Any advice?!

ANSWER:
Your little one’s symptoms and behaviour sound very much like silent reflux and I definitely feel it warrants investigation with your paediatrician. A baby doesn’t have to regurgitate milk up in order to have reflux. Silent Reflux can often create more discomfort than visible reflux and is also not as easily diagnosed. One of the symptoms of silent reflux is going off the bottle, screaming around feeding and a dramatic drop in intake. It is important to sort this out as soon as possible in order to prevent long term feeding refusal! Something else to investigate is an allergy to the milk and this can also cause great discomfort when eating! Hope you come right.