Help is this nipple confusion ?

[SuzieB]

I have been bf my ds (10 wks) & he also has an bottle of ebm which dh gives at night (since 2 wks) yesterday out of the blue at his lunchtime feed he screamed like mad when I tried to bf him.
This has continued with every feed since and the only way I can get him to latch on now is by getting him to suck a dummy (which he never liked before now !) and then whipping dummy out and getting boob in !.
Every feed is like a battle and is becoming stressfull for myself and ds.

Please help can't contact hv at weekend and just don't know what to do - dh wants me to get some formula but I want to persevere - there must be something I can do.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[mears]

It could be that there is something else going on such as an ear infection which could cause pain when he is lying, but ir relieved by sucking, hence why the dummy is working. Or it could be the start of a cold that is causing increased pressure in the ear. Try changing his position at the breast to a more upright one. Formula is not the answer. It is something that will resolve. If it is an infection then it is more important that he gets breastmilk in to help him fight it off. I would get his ears checked by GP if it continues.

It may be something else completely.

there are useful tips here

[lummox]

Hi there. I haven't had exactly the same thing (never really got ds to the point where he would happily take a bottle at all), but we did go through a stage of him screaming at the breast.

I don't really know what caused it even now, but it lasted on and off for about a week.

I found that changing sides helped, as did putting him into slightly different positions - quite often one of them would work and he would feed OK.

I've read quite a lot of stuff on here about screaming caused by babies getting distractible at the breast and would think that was more likely than nipple confusion.

I may be being biased (am now really pleased that I persisted with bfing), but I can't see that giving him formula will help. In the short, medium and long term he will prefer and get more comfort from the breast if my experience is anything to go by.