Im starting to feel really down. My daughters feeding is relentless, I have the odd few days where she settles down but other than that she feeds like she is on a constant growth spurt. Today she fed 6 until 8am, then 9 till 10 at which point I went out to a carboot sale so cut her feeding short. She cried all way there. She was then in the sling and slept, we left about 12 and went out for lunch. She cried all the way there, I started to feed her as soon as we sat down and she fed the whole time except for when I went the loo and she screamed the place down! We left about 2 and she cried whole way home. Started feeding at home about 2:30 and she finally fell asleep at about 11:30pm! I even had OH give her 2oz bottle while I gobbled a bowl of cereal for my tea but it made no difference!
And here I am feeding her again at 5! These hours during the night is literally the only time she goes down to sleep, if I put her down during the day 9 times out of 10 she will wake up! If my OH is here Im having to ask him to give her a couple of ounces feed just to give me 5 minutes to do something!! But as soon as that is gone she carries on like it never happened! She also hates the pushchair and carseat so I cant take her out of for a walk to soothe her and because she wont take a dummy its either feed or put her in the sling which means again that she is 'on' me. I just want 5 minutes without a baby being strapped to me!!!!
Its really starting to get me down and I feel trapped. Going anywhere is a nightmare because she screams all the way there and feeds the whole time Im out. Also my 2 year old is starting to be REALLY naughty, hes kicking, screaming, being mean and generally being awful. He really starts when I have to feed her as he knows its hard for me to do anything about it! He's getting hardly any attention and it shows. I really really dont want to give up breastfeeding Ive battled too hard to get to this point but OMG Im exhausted and really need things to start getting better soon.
Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.
Infant feeding
6 week old baby feeds constantly and not settled - I'm at my wits end!!
redwallday · 29/08/2011 11:29
oh dear, that does sound tough.
Can your dh settle her in a sling for a bit? Can you bf in the sling so you can still do things with your toddler?
Six weeks is a classic growth spurt so this is about as difficult as it can get. And it will get better.
The first six weeks are reckoned to be hardest by lots of bfers. If you can hold on in there, maybe with a couple more coping stratergies courtesy of mn) i'm sure you'll see real improvements over the next few weeks. 
Hi hun. New to bf myself my ds went thru this couple of weeks ago. He's now 8 wo and sleeping in his basket as I type. I've done some housework and am now waiting on him to waken
. It does get easier. My dd also 2, is just potty trained to top things off. She always needs potty when I'm feeding so I do understand your pain!! Hang in there!!! I've had to get stricter with dd but it seems to be paying off as now she knows what no means. She can go all night dry so she can wait 20 mins for potty
Urgh the forst 6 weeks are brutal aren't they? Things didn't settle down with my ds until 8 weeks. I remember one night putting a sheet on my chest so I could feel just a little bit separated from him when he refused to sleep anywhere else.
Have you seen a bf counsellor? I have seen/heard them recommend to a couple of women (myself included) that LO's were grazing and having a "pop and crisps" diet. LO's were gaining weight, plenty of wet/dirty nappies so all seemed fine on the outside but never settling nicely after a feed (and not a growth spurt time). The advice was that we were to make them wait 2 hours between each feed so that they were proper hungry, fed nicely and properly filled up. I only had to make ds wait once to get him feeding better (so the bf counsellors took him off my hands for a bit) but another lady I know had to repeat this for 24hours and very much needed her DH's help. BUT see a bf counsellor before doing anything like this of course.
RE: dummies - I tried them ALL and the only one my ds would eventually take is the tesco value cherry dummy 
(at least they are cheap to replace when he loses them )
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.