Yet another nursing strike...

[brightongirldownunder]

I'm here again, in this stressful situation which is making me really not enjoy breastfeeding..A real shame as I fed my daughter for over a year. DS is 4 months and has been having nursing strikes for over 1 1/2 months now. I can see his canines coming through and presumed its this that was causing it, however he never really seems to enjoy feeding. He only latches on for about 5 mins max and only one breast. Apart from when my milk flow is low I can be really engorged and the let down almost chokes him, so i'm wondering if this is ever going to work. There have been very few long happy feeds. Is he trying to wean early? He's a big boy - probably well over 17 lbs now but I've noticed his weight gain in slowing down. He's cut down his feeds even on a good day to every 4 hours. He is also showing real interest in food, and Ive been determined to keep him on milk until 6 months, but he salivates when we eat and tried to eat some banana the other day.
I'm so confused - do I try and express to feed him more? Should I start weaning him? Or do I persist in the hope that my milk supply will settle and that he will eventually enjoy feeding once the factors causing his strikes have eventually disappeared?

Sorry no real advice just random thoughts.

Nursing strikes or just fussy behaviour. For us 3-5 months was the peak in fussiness combined with some teething. DD has 5 minute feeds from 6 weeks and even in the first few days a long feed was 20 mins. We did get to the nice feeds that weren't a fight. I was on the verge of switching to fully expressing as it seemed by far the easier option.

It's also not un-normal for them to reduce the time that they take to feed around now and to go longer. Especially if he is so big I would have thought. DD wasn't 17lbs at a year. If he is so big he's clearly thriving and weight gain does start to slow down around here.

As for early weaning, it's not something I would consider yet but if you do, a BLW approach would ensure he's in control and only able to take what he can i.e. give him a banana and see what he does versus spooning in baby rice or pureed vegetables.

have you looked up about forceful letdowns?

Bump...
Thanks penguin, by the way..I just wonder if I should give in to the bottle. So far I've only offered it a couple of times but I found it really hard to express the milk. Funnily enough today my letdowns have disappeared, mostly because of stress at home I think. He still started crying about 2 mins into feeding and pulled off, refusing to feed again. However when he watched me eat porridge he was dribbling. I know its too early but is he rejecting the breast because he's hungry?

They don't know solid food is for filling them up yet. You said he was teething, wouldn't that account for the dribbling?

At this age they get really interested in the world and everything you do. Ds got really distracted and refused to feed during the day at that age, would cry when I tried to offer. I fed him lying down in a quiet room when he was sleepy and he took much more and more happily.

Agree that its normal for bf babies weight gain to slow down and they become much more efficient at getting it out too.

Thanks Albrecht - I'm now feeding Ds as you mentioned you did with your son. It may be teething thats causing all of this.
I think I'm beginning to sound very paranoid after my series of threads on my problems with BF - hope I haven't chased everyone away, its just that my homelife/relationship is anything but settled and the one thing that would really help calm things at the moment would be to be able to feed properly.

It's always easy for us to remind you to calm down, but we remember being there and that panic or worry seems to overrule the rational part. I think it's because for most of us the knowledge is all new with BF not being seen to be normal and def. not talked about combined with RL people not knowing much either and first line of help being to suggest FF.

You're doing great and in a few months you'll be working out how to diplomatically tell people to calm down :)

and I had a terribly slow let down reflex. Bottle for a while seemed to cause fussiness but when I went back to work that seemed to coincide with when things got better so I don't know what you should do. (In fact only you know that) I think what helped was that I wasn't around with the bottles or it is given (in the majority) planned and not after a frustrated BF session.