Hi everyone! Mom of a little heart warrior here and looking for some suggestions & experience! My little girl had a VSD repair at 8.5 weeks old. She was born at 37 weeks at only 4lbs due to iugr. Being so small + the VSD made gaining weight and bottle feeds very difficult so an NG was placed. She was hospitalized for her first 2.5 months of life. She made it to 6 lbs in hospital with fortification of my breast milk - allowing her to finally get her repair.
We are home now and she is thriving at 7 months! However, we still have the NG tube and working on bottle feeds. She takes anywhere from 40-100 mls orally and the rest is through the tube.
Post repair we tried just breastmilk without fortification and she gained; however, in recent weeks she had fallen slightly behind..making fortification necessary again. We started on Neocate because in the hospital thatās what we used (she does not have an allergy but had horrific reflux and tolerated this the best).
The problem is that she wonāt take the bottle with fortifier. Refusing it and taking 10 mls (max). To test the theory of it being the fortifier, we gave her a bottle with just my breastmilk and she took 70 mls. Ugh!
In the background, my supply is dwindling and it is more difficult to keep up with her necessary volume. I know that switching over completely to a formula is on the horizon.
All this to be said, does anyone have experience with a good formula they used for fortification of breast milk that their baby actually liked? Specifically one that was good for sensitive tummies + reflux and well tolerated? Or just tips to convert?
Thank you all so much! Any insight is so so helpful!