Why would a spell in hospital make a difference?

[Bearandcub]

Dear all,

Please help. My very hungry boy (2 months) who until recently was breastfeeding every 1.5-2 hours is turning his nose up at breastfeeding and saying yes to bottles. We have always supplement fed him with 1 aptamil bottle in the evening, mainly to give me a break (and because I couldn't get on with my manual pump) but breastmilk has always been his fav.

Last week I was admitted to hospital for 36 hours and was not allowed to give him my expressed milk because of the morphine and anti-biotics. Now he just isn't interested in coming back to the breast.

I'm persevering but it's really getting me down. Each feed (still demand-feeding) is started with breastfeeding but is either ending up with a formula top-up (on one occasion - 6 floz - hardly a top-up!) or feeding him again in 30-45 minutes.

Would a separation of 36 hours really effect my milk production that much? Could it taste different? What's happened?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Bearandcub - so sad you were told not to give breastmilk. Use of morphine and antibiotics would not normally be a reason to suspend bf for this length of time www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/drugs-in-breastmilk-information-and-factsheets.html or else alternatives could be used.

Your baby may just be upset and confused because of the separation. I think it's really, really, unlikely the taste is affecting him. There may be a temp. drop in supply, but his behaviour sounds more like he just recognised you were not there and wants you to stay now you are back :)

It is good he wants to bf 30-45 mins later - excellent, in fact! It means you are stimulated to restore any shortfall in your supply and he is re-connecting with you in a way which will make him happy.

You can encourage this by keeping him skin to skin and responding quickly to any feeding cues - big struggles and fights to get him on and get him to stay on are not so good.

Hope this helps :)

Very helpful Tiktok and, not that it takes much prompting but, so nice it made me cry. Thank you.

I'd taken the needing to feed so quickly again negatively as just not filling him up but you're right - it is a positive.

It's not struggling to get him on so much, he just finishes v quickly then screams for more until he gets some. My Eric the hungry caterpillar is now Oliver Twist!