Breast Feed 8 week old who all of a sudden isn't feeding well

[Freckly]

I'm writing this for my wife as she's too busy trying to get our 8 week old daughter to take a full feed. Until last week she feed well, 1-1.5 breasts every 3hrs during the day which was stretching to 4-5 hrs at night. From about last Tuesday she suddently stopped taking more than about 0.5 breasts - even for this she wrestles, squirms and breaks off. Interestingly if we give her expressed milk from a bottle she does exactly the same - breaks off, wrestles etc. Sometimes (breast and bottle) she only take a bit - but them will have a big feed 10-20 mins later!

All of this has resulted in two things - i) her weight gain was very low for the last week (although she's still in the upper quartile for her age and before now she had been gaining weight well) and ii) she now wakes up every two hours for feeding, even during the night.

She doesn't have thrush and is otherwise happy. Speaking to the health visitor they had no ideas. Maybe it's just a phase but we wondered if anyone has had a similar experience or had any thoughts?

We'd really appreciate any light you can shed on this.

could it be a wind/need to burped?? read somewhere that some babies need to be burped before a feed and with my DD2, she needs burping even after a couple of sucks....

not much help, i'm afraid but hope things get better for you & wife ...

my daughter was the same when she was born she would take so much and then she went to only taking 2oz but after a while she did start to drink more but due to that her weight went from 7lb 7oz to 7lb 3oz and took a few days to go back up and this was when she was 12days old but after that she put a good bit on
do your daughter have a cold or anything ?

Was going to say same thing as lauren about a cold - our lo had cold early on and it made her take less milk - hv said something to do with it being more effort for them with a blocked nose - not sure how true this is

We'd wondered about a bug/cold but she doesn't seem to have any symptons. She seems to be breathing though her nose ok or at least so far as we can tell.

When she takes the first amount is she really ready for it? YOu say she then goes on to have a big feed 10 - 20 mins later - maybe she has just altered her times she wants feeding - Maybe you could delay the feed times

Hi, I used to have a book years ago entitled Why Babies Cry. In it, it said that during a baby's first year they undergo several emotional growth spurts. The first is at 5 wks, the next at 8-9 weeks. What happens is that just prior to these happening, a baby can be unsettled, cry more, feed poorly etc. Once the baby's brain is able to assimilate the new information it can handle, things settle down. Sadly, this book is out of print now. It may not be the reason but if it is, her feeding might settle down within the next week or two.

Sounds spot on karmamother - 5 weeks and about 8 weeks were roughly when we noticed changes to routine. (When I say routine I mean the one set by dd not one we followed)

Hi Muppet73, I really wish I still had this book as it got me through many stressful times. I've searched Amazon but can't find it. The authors are a Dutch couple if you fancy looking for it too. The other good thing about it was it told you what your baby was able to comprehend at each stage & games/toys you could use to help them along. If I find it I'll let you know.

my 10 week old sometimes gets a bit like this - usually caused by wind.
Also - how a bout swaddling her during feeds to stop squrming etc