Nursing strike?

[AngelDog]

Is it normal to have a partial nursing strike? 18 m.o. DS is generally refusing feeds when awake (he feeds fine when going to sleep) but will sometimes accept them. He normally feeds on demand.

He went on strike before at 13 m.o. but he'd only feed when sleepy / asleep then and wouldn't feed at all while awake.

I'm not entirely surprised if it is - he's got a streaming nose, his teeth are bothering him, his eczema has flared up and his sleep has gone haywire (yesterday he was up at 5am and wouldn't go to bed till 11pm with just one nap at 9.30am ).

Maybe he's just naturally cutting down on feeds as he gets older?

I would say so, otherwise known as fussy behaviour. DD was the queen of this when she was younger. At least with the strikes you could focus your energy on it and it kinda made sense.

As you say there are lots of other factors that could explain and a few friend on fb seem to having similar issues. If it helps DD's sleep has gone haywire and she weaned two month ago :( (pg not a strike)

Thanks. I took him to the GP and he has an ear infection, which probably explains it. That was what happened last time he went on strike (plus a chest infection, v&d and conjunctivitis too then).

There is a 18 month sleep regression (more info here and here and here) but I didn't think that was influencing things as he's a few weeks too young yet IMO.

Hope your DD's sleep improves soon, PenguinArmy.

Has it been 2 months already? Wow!

(sorry for hijack Angel. I'll bugger off now)

You're welcome to stay if you want, MBJ! :)

Thank you.

I don't know, just know it's been more than a month, maybe 6 weeks. She's 15 months now, so beyond the 60 weeks but not at 18 months. I think ours is due to a slooowww transition to one nap so she ends up being overtired. It's still better than every 90 mins which lasted about a month. Plus she's slept through about 2 times so there is form now :)

fb friends I think were attributing it to teething plus illness.

Hopefully it will stay a partial strike for you.

There is a developmental leap at 64 weeks (and then another at 75 weeks) and sleep is often messed up ahead of those.

Nap transitions are horrible too IME. I kept on going with 2 naps for waaay longer than DS needed them - he wasn't overtired, but in the end he was sleep deprived from not going to bed till really, really late at night. It did prevent the early waking pattern though.