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Infant feeding

Any advice re 9mo refusing feeds?

3 replies

Yesmynameis · 15/07/2011 21:13

We have been doing BLW with dd since 6mo and she has taken to food like a duck to water, having 3 good meals a day.

Since introducing solids, she has still kept all her usual day time bf which are at 8am, 11am, 3pm, 6pm give or take, and has been waking for one further feed around 11pm-12am.

This last week or two, the night feed has been moving later and later and she's been losing interest in some of the day time feeds, regularly skipping out the middle ones.

Today, other than her first feed of the day, she has had virtually no bm all day. She has completely refused all my efforts to offer feeds, wriggling, squirming and screaming her head off until I give up trying to feed her at which point she immediately stops crying. Obviously she doesn't want the milk?

She has still eaten 3 good meals of solid food and has drunk water from her cup with her meals.

Should I be concerned? In the space of a week she seems to have been dropping feeds left right and centre... She has now gone to bed without any bm since about 9 oclock this morning :(

My MIL tells me that DH as a baby stopped bf at this age which is adding to my worries; could DD be following in his footsteps? She does eat a lot of food...

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TruthSweet · 15/07/2011 21:21

It could be a nursing strike or an over reliance on solids (some babies get so keen on solids they don't want to nurse and so cut back on bfing well before they 'should').

There has been a few threads recently about nursing strikes/breast refuing babies so its not uncommon and you are not alone. It doesn't have to be the end of bfing though and if you want to carry on bfing there are ways around it. If you want to end bfing sooner rather than later then this is a easy pain-free way to do it (it might not be pain-free for you though so express if you need to). Obviously baby will have to have formula if you are happy to stop (which you know of course!)

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Yesmynameis · 16/07/2011 13:48

Thanks so much TruthSweet, I got lots of info from the link you posted.

So so interesting to read that unusual distrations can be the root cause of a nursing strike. I went to visit mil yesterday and my 2yo nephew was paying very close attention to me feeding dd and was standing pretty close to my boob, peering at her face and asking 'what's she doing?' over and over! Unfortuantely there was no-one in the room to rescue me at the time :) . So funny I suppose, but obviously very distracting for my 9mo and thinking back that seems to have been when things definately took a turn for the worst.

Could also be a case of overdoing it on the solids, however not too sure quite what I can do about that... we have always done blw, she has as much as she wants and I wouldn't want to limit her when she's doing so well...

She did wake for a small feed around 3:30am this morning which she took without too much fuss and also had a reasonable feed when she woke about 8am, however since then it's been the same story of refusing... Very strange - a partial nursing strike?? I don't think it's just naturally dropping feeds as it has come on quite sudden and she's so unhappy about the whole thing :(

But again, thanks so much for your kind words. I have dusted off my breast pump and feel much more relaxed about the situation now, which will in itself help I think. Thanks :)

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TruthSweet · 16/07/2011 21:29

Sometimes babies feed 'better' when sleepy or just on waking but refuse at other times. Sometimes there is a definite reason that causes a strike (like being pounced on by a toddler during a feed or accidentally biting mum and mum shrieking) sometimes there is no reason at all (outside of baby's head!).

You could try laying out a reasonable amount of food for baby and then if she eats it all offer to nurse her again (just to check, would you normally feed her roughly an hour before offering solids?) rather than giving her another helping of solids.

Keeping things low key and stress free and not trying to get her to feed can help, just snuggling skin to skin, perhaps if she wakes in the early morning get her in bed with you and OH and snuggle together so she's not being forced to feed and if she does great, if not then it helps her to keep being comfortable being near your breasts.

You don't want to get in to the situation where she is fed up of being forced against you and made to nurse (not saying you will but it can be very frustrating when you are full of milk and they won't blinking well nurse!).

Anyway good luck with your DD to get back to nursing in more sociable hours Grin

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