baby very unsettled during evening feeds

[whimsicalquark]

my baby is now 7 weeks old. Im now feeling pretty confident with the breast feeding. She feeds lovely during the day, every 3 hours or so but in the evening (after about 7pm) when she feeds she seems very distressed. The feed starts off ok but then about half way through sh starts to cry and shake her head from side to side, when she does suck shes doing it crazily fast as if the milk cant get in quick enough but then will let go and shake her head around when I try to reattach. The evening feeds seem a lot more frequent as well, sometimes hourly. when she gets really worked up I take her off and walk around with her for a bit and this seems to calm her down but it generally starts back up when I try again to fees.I just cant understand why she is so distressed when the daytime feeds are fine, any advice ??

This is so normal it has a name 'Cluster feeding' and 'Fussy Evenings'. For some reason HCPs never mention this to new mums so of course you think there is something wrong with baby/your milk supply.

It's just part of human babies being born 'early' (biologically speaking humans should be pg for about 18m not 9m but walking upright meant our babies have to be born earlier to get out of our narrow pelvises) and not because we are doing anything wrong.

It does get easier and it will pass, it just takes time. A good box set and something nice to nibble helps when you are stuck on the sofa all evening

Lots of helpful info here.

HTH

Also your milk supply is always 1-2 days behind your baby. For your body to know to make more milk your baby has to suck when the supply is lower iyswim.

A way of helping this is to offer feeds during the day in between the 3 hourly ones. The baby doesn't have to have a proper feed, just a little bit of sucking can help your body get a move on.

To help you both, plan for the evenings. Get yourself a feeding station with snacks, tv, phone, MN and plan to just sit and cuddle/feed and nothing else.

hth

Penguin - the behaviours you describe are usually (though not 100% all the time) feeding reflexes. If you feed in a biological nurturing position (aka laid back nursing) you will probably find that these movements aid bfing not hinder it.

Nothing to suggest your supply is anything but fine. My comment on it aiding bfing was that in laid back nursing those behaviours make it easier for baby to latch (as you've found out) not that it would help increase supply.