14 week old refusing to breastfeed

[fairydusty]

I have always breastfed my baby with the odd bottle of expressed milk now and again - however yesterday he point blank refused to feed from me - screaming blue murder evertime i tried. He took his first two feeds of the day fine but after that it was a nightmare. Ended up expressing and giving him it in a bottle. This morning he has fed fine but yesterday has dented my confidence and feel the need now to take a bottle of expressed milk with me when i go out this morning. Has this happened to anyone else - my friends little one got this age and stopped completely any advice.

My dd is 16 week and is very distractible at the boob now. Anywhere we go she doesn't want to feed if there's something happening. At home it's ok as mummy is boring. If she's hungry when we're out I sometimes take her and sit in the car for a feed. It's worse for us when she's really over stimulated. Could it be something similar with you? Don't get stressed about it and try to feed before you go out. Iirc my dd1 did similar at this age but it improved again in a few weeks. There's a lot of development happening at this stage and it causes all sorts of complications.

Hth

thanks molly, it did start when i was at my friends house but it was quiet and he is used to it there so i;m not sure and he continued to refuse for the rest of the day. He has fed ok the lst few feeds but will only latch onto one side and is cryinga and refusing the other side so i have been expressing from that side. Hope it comes ok - i was loving feeding him after having a terrible time with my 1st lo.

thanks again x

Have you tried feeding him in a different position? DD has days like this too, but I will usually be able to get her to feed if we go and lie down together.
Sometimes it helps if I calm her down with a dummy before trying to latch her on.

Teething? It may hurt to feed?

invisible - would that stop him feeding - didn't think about this, he is teething. I thought the breastfeeding comforted baby but i wonder if this is it -

snail tried lying down and the rugby hold and still won't feed off the other side. Also been getting a friend or my dh to calm him then passing him to me quickly to get him on before he gets upset again but didn't work either

He does seem much happier today which is better. He is due another feed in an hour but i'm going to try and feed him before he gets too hungry and try and get him to latch on the side he hasn't been feeding from. Will also give him something for the teeth a little before he is fed so they aren't sore

Thanks ladies x

Yes, it stops my girl feeding. If she has teething gel relief or calpol she feeds fine. They use their gum to massage your breast to get the milk out - not totally, but that is part of the mechanism. Apparently! thats what I got told anyway!!

My DD went through a phase of this at roughly the same age. If I remember right it lasted about a week. We never did find the cause but a couple of mums online with babies the same age had the same problem so I think it's fairly normal. :)

Thanks feel better that its common and his feeding is already improving so i am hoping it continues to improve and we get back to normal soon x