breastfed baby refusing boob

[HopeFull28]

Hi all my DS is exclusively breastfed he's had maybe 2 bottles a week since birth and now he's 15wks and he's refusing the boob.. what do I do now?? He literally tries a couple times but then just cries

[riksti]

Both of mine did that around the same age. I just rocked them to calm them down and offered again. Eventually they took the boob. The messing around lasted about 3-4 days,I think, and then the feeding was back to normal.

[HopeFull28]

Aw thanks for ur reply that's reassuring, I wonder why.. he's usually such a good feeder

[MishMooshAndMogwai]

Dd2 was the same. For a few days she'd take forever to settle enough then would only feed if I was dancing about at the same time!

Be prepared for the health visitors oh so helpful solution of 'just persevere' which in hindsight is all they could really say but seems bloody unhelpful at the time!

Good luck!

[Latium123]

Same experience here and like riksti mine just started feeding again. Just stick with it and it should pass. You can try a few different things to see if he will take like a different position to usual e.g. sometimes they like to feed in a more sitting up position by this age.

[CityDweller]

God, my DD did this around this age and DS does it ALL the time. It's so frustrating. With both of them, feeding them standing up, jiggling them around/ dancing/ walking around tends to get them to latch on and stay latched on. In fact, this is the only way I can get DS to feed at bedtime.

Various reasons for it, I think. With DD at around 15 weeks was when she started getting really distracted. Feeding her standing up, moving around meant she could see what was going on around us. DS is just a fussy feeder - first it was because my letdown was too strong, now it's, I think, because it's too slow. He's a tough customer to please!

[pollyr01]

16 weeks typical distraction time but it will pass. If you can cover/face wall/do in darkened room so nothing else for them to look at!!

[pointythings]

There's a few things you could try:

• Movement/jiggling
  
• Change of position
  
• Non-stimulating environment
  
• Catch him when he's sleepy
  
• Could he have an ear infection? If so, the feeding position will make pressure worse and increase the pain
  

They're dreadfully nosy at this age, the world is just too interesting. However, they truly won't starve themselves.

[HopeFull28]

He's feeding fine again now, tbh I'm pretty sure he's teething so may be it's hurting his gums.. he's got to be weighed again next wk so I'll mention it to health visitor and yeah he is a nosy boy haha

[Cuppaand2biscuits]

Well done for sticking with it. It's very unusual for a baby to self wean before 12 months as others have said it's probably distraction, impatience or teething. My son got his first tooth at 15 weeks, he stopped feeding to sleep while his teeth were coming through.

[lilypadpod]

Mine went through that stage too, at one point he refused boob for 3days so I had to express and bottle-feed.

My solution was dream-feeding him every time he napped, he never refused a dream feed. I still do this otherwise he saves up all his feeds for night-time! And I stopped the bottles once he was feeding regularly again and once I was sure he could feed from breast if he wanted to. He often cried for a bit but would eventually take the breast when he realised no bottle was coming!

He also likes to feed in the baby carrier while being rocked.

[pointythings]

Well done sticking with it, if you can do this at 15 weeks, you can do anything!