by Joanne Adams
(Birmingham )
My daughter is 3 1/2 months and she is sick quite bad. She now refuses to eat. She had her last bottle at half six pm last night.
I have tried to give her one and she is just being sick on it an she is gagging in it. She even gags on her dummy. What do I do please?
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Baby Help Line:
What To Do When Sick Baby Refuses To Eat
Poor baby. I don’t know what time of the day you wrote this message, but such a young baby should of course eat a lot more often than once per day. A really sick baby may refuse to eat for various reasons, but you must still get liquid into her. If she has no appetite, she still at least needs some oral electrolyte solution, so she stays hydrated. That is extremely important!
Sometimes a sick baby may not want to drink because she can’t breathe. If she has a stopped up nose, which is especially likely since she gags on her dummy as well as on the bottle, you may want to use saline nose drops.
You can make these by adding 0.5 teaspoons of table salt to 1 cup of boiled water. After the solution has come to room temperature, put one drop in each nostril then suck with the 1 ounce rubber syringe (suction bulb). Do this before each feeding and at bed time. This will make it easier for the child to breathe.
Other reasons your baby may not want to eat are a sore throat and nausea. In case of a sore throat, you can heat a pot of water, add a teaspoon of olive or peach oil in it and let the baby breath in the vapors. This is similar to what the cough and sore throat relieve lozenges do: release oil to cover the throat. But as the baby can’t really eat the lozenge without swallowing or, even worse, choking on it, the oil has to be inhaled. Just don’t make the water too hot and don’t use the essential oils, as those may cause allergies.
Ask your doctor for advice regarding Tylenol, if you think your baby may be in pain, or her fever is so high that she doesn’t want to eat for that reason.
If she gags on formula or breast milk, try with the oral electrolyte solution (rehydration solution) and maybe only a teaspoon at the time. Babies that have a stomach bug or even just a bad cold with a lot of mucus, may vomit very easily if they eat too much.
Start feeding your baby rehydration solution immediately. If you can’t go out to buy any, you can make your own rehydration solution by boiling 6 teaspoons of sugar and 0.5 teaspoons of table salt in one litre (4.5 cups) of clean water.
If your baby appears dehydrated, (tired, doesn’t urinate or urine is dark yellow), start feeding her 2 teaspoons of the solution every five minutes and at the same time call the doctor for advice. Find more signs of dehydration in this thread
If she is dehydrated, you need to feed her even if she is asleep. Take her up, hold her in an upright position and gently push the spoon into her mouth. You can wake her up just a little bit to make her swallow. Keep going.
I sat with my baby daughter doing this many hours at night when she had a stomach bug. The ER told me I could do this at home or in the hospital. Same procedure. I stayed at home, and she slowly got better.
I understand that this may sound very scary, but with a little baby that doesn’t eat, one really has to act. Dehydration is very dangerous for them.
I hope your daughter is better soon and not dehydrated.
Warm wishes,
Paula
(Answer approved by our Medical Reference Team)
More Sick Babies That Won’t Eat
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My daughter just turned 1 on 3/24/15 and was on formula and milk at the same time and we only gave the formula to her at night when she goes to bed and she is now off of formula and only on Milk, and Tuesday 4/7/15 she had 3 poops in a row diarrhea, Wednesday 4/8/15 night she puked 3+ times!, Thursday 4/9/15 morning 3 times puked then at 4:30pm puked and had more diarrhea which was light pale color, then she puked 2 more times after that from trying to get her to eat 1 pea which she puked and then tried a piece of cracker which did the same never made it down to her tummy before puking. All she has had since 4:30 was water and pedia-light, she can’t keep milk, food, or pedia-light down. Her energy level is down a little less then normal seems to be sleepy. has not been able to eat or drink anything very much since Tuesday. she is having trouble sleeping, puke comes from mouth and nose at same time. we have never had any problems with any of these foods or drinks until now. My mother in law gave her 4oz of pedi-light w/ ice and then later gave her 8oz of water when she put her down for bed. I called her doctor today before i went to work and asked if i could give her some infants Tylenol to help with the puking and she told me yes every 4 hrs and i did but it didn’t do any help. She has been eating a lot of ice which also concerns me and it started about a month ago and she drinks a lot of ice water too which also started about a month ago. With all of this she has no fever at all. i am very worried, My gut is telling me to take her to the doctors tomorrow, which I am going to do!!
I have a question, my baby is 5months old and has mouth hand foot disease and has a sore throat and won’t eat. It had been about 8 hours since he last ate so I kept trying to feed him and nothing. I don’t like waiting to long to do something for him so I need advice as to what can I do to feed him. Right now he is on nothing but cereal and formula. Still wetting diapers but not as usual. He used to eat about 8oz every 3hrs and now he won’t eat anything. Its been about a day and he has been to the ER. Doctor just told me to keep giving him liquids and to give him Tylenol for the pain but my baby barely wants to swallow his saliva. He doesn’t have a fever because I have been monitoring that well. But I need advice for his feeding ? Should I do a syringe feed? Introduce some different liquids? I don’t want to just leave it alone and see where it goes. I know why he doesn’t want to eat, but how can I get him to get at least half of his regular intake?
Hi,
I wouldn’t worry about any eating, only the liquids. Can you give him Tylenol or similar through a suppository to ease his pain? If he doesn’t drink and starts showing signs of dehydration, then take him back to his doctor. But you can try to offer him just formula, water and rehydration solution for babies, such as Pedialyte. Offer it often, even if he only takes a tea spoon. If he enjoys suckling on something, you can also try to dip a piece of a small bed sheet or towel and let him suck on it. Anything that makes him drink.
His appetite for eating will come back when he starts feeling better. I know it can be scary to see a young baby refuse to eat, but in my experience, they often compensate afterwards, with a huge appetite.
Good luck and let us know how things go.
Paula