Expert: Sageda El-Abbasy - 5/2/2009

Question
My daughter is 14 weeks old and is exclusively breastfed, she is not settling down at all.  I breastfed my first child for 10 weeks but she always had an evening bottle of formula, she too was not settling until my doctor told me to stop breastfeeding completely (due to poor weight gain), then she became a lovely happy baby.   I blamed the initial formula bottles for making me have a poor milk supply which caused my first daughter to be so unsettled so have not given any formula to my new baby (except 3 x 3oz bottles when I was really desperate in the first 6 weeks).  
I was convinced this baby would begin to settle down at 3 months but so far no luck.  She puts on a max of 4oz a week and has dropped from being right on average weight at birth to in the lowest percentile at just 10lb at 14 weeks.  She does not stay content for longer than half an hour at a time, does not like baby gyms, swings or bouncers and is no better when being held.  It is virtually impossible to get her to sleep during the day - and if she does its only after she has cried herself to sleep either on me, in the car or the pram.  She only has about 4 wet nappies a day.  I have tried giving her bottles to try and increase her weight and make her content, also so I can get out for a couple of hours but she won't take formula or expressed milk from bottles, or cups or the medela advanced cup feeder thing.  My mum and my husband have also tried all of the above.  The only way to get anything down her is to spoon or syringe it in while she is screaming, and then after a few mouthfuls she gets so stressed she goes to sleep.  I had a really good bond with her when she was first born but this is rapidly disappearing, I also feel I am neglecting my 2 year old.
 Once again I am left assuming I have a poor milk supply, I contacted a LLL peer supporter who checked her latch and said it was fine (but I'm still not convinced), I have tried skin to skin, switch feeding and taking fenugreek and milk thistle all with no improvement.  She always feeds from both breasts except at night - she goes to sleep in her moses basket then comes in with us to feed and stays in with us.  She used to feed twice overnight but now it is every 1.5-2 hours when she wakes me up and I have to swap breasts.  I suspect she is largely using me as a dummy.  My health visitor is useless, she is no help at all, I get the impression she does not approve of breastfeeding.  Quite frankly I think I would give up on the breastfeeding if I could have a contented baby, but I am now trapped as it is all she will take.  We rarely go out of the house because it is never long before she starts screaming and then strangers are saying "aw is she hungry" when I fed her just before we left the house.  A couple of other things - she usually feeds for around 40min in total and never seems to get so full she falls asleep.  Usually I end up feeding her every 1.5-2hrs, this does not leave much time in between.  Also, when I express the max I get is 1.5oz.
Please, please help.

Answer
First of all let me apologize for my late reply as I lost internet connection at home.
You seem to have a crying baby all the time and I know how stressful this can be.  Well, your baby seems to have a problem with getting anything in, it's not just your milk, but formula or anything from a bottle.  I guess this means that the problem is not with latching.  You need to check with her gp that everything is alright with her ears to know why she does not like to suck for long.
If she starts feeding for long on either your breast or bottle, her weight will increase, her crying will decrease, you will be able to let her sleep through the night and everything will become better.  I don't think you are doing anything wrong.  You need to take her to her gp and try to find out where the problem is.
Keep me updates and best of luck.