Milk flow- baby crying at the breast after 3 min

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my baby is 10 weeks old. he cires shortly after starting feeding and also punches my breasts with his fists - I just feel he wants the milk to flow. he gets frustrated. how can I help this situation? what does punching with fists mean in baby language?

cires? Is that tires?

Generally frustration, wind or in older babies also attention seeking in my experience.

Could be oversupply, see here.

Slow let down, see here.

Low supply, see here.

It could mean anything. It could be your flow but you can easily check that with expressing to see once he starts thumping. I am only replying really to say that after weeks of having such a stressful time with mine around this age, it turned out it had been a stomach virus. Especially my first, she would clearly be hungry but be twisting away screaming too. Eventually after many clinic visits a nice doctor explained that her stomach lining was compromised from a bug (forgot to say there was a week of diarrhoea and windy stomach at the start of the problem which then went on for a couple of months further with her screaming at feeds otherwise symptom free) and it was healing like a scab and everytime she drank it would take off the scab which was why it was taking so long to resolve. One day, weeks and weeks later it resolved overnight and the feast after the famine began. She didn't seem to have suffered from this nightmare in terms of growth or health. All I can say is go to your weighing in clinic to monitor it. Hope it starts to go well for you soon - got to be the most vile stress EVER having your baby refusing boob. I can still remember vividly.

Expressing is not necessarily a good indicator of supply, some women can't get a drop with a pump but have a full supply for direct feeding.

He prossibly does want it to flow faster - you could try switch feeding where you swap sides once he gets frustrated. This causes more letdowns.

By the way, him hitting them is helping stimulate letdowns, so as long as he's still feeding don't switch him, just if he comes off and doesn't want to go back on.

I think it is slow flow...I will read kellymom website on this. My baby feeds 5 min then stops and I now feel that I do not have as much milk as before - shall I start pumping after he finished his 5 min feed?

You could to see...mine only fed for 5mins at a time and nothing would wake them up. The doctor I saw as I said before said that they get 80% of what they need in that time. 80% reassuring then! The fact that he is crying whilst feeding is suggesting he is not sated though. Go down the clinic, keep an eye on the weight and see what the midwives say.

Not true that babies get 80 per cent of what they need in 5 mins - some babies get all they need, some get a lot less than this, some babies finish sooner, some babies need ages more....and most babies are not the same every feed anyway :)

I think that at 10 weeks, 'not being sated' is only one of many possible reasons for crying. OP, is your baby growing ok? Has he been solely bf since birth? Why do you think you have less milk than before?

Like I said, talking to the clinic is really the best solution. I was just giving a 'not worst case' scenario of mine to give the op perspective as I remember feeling so alone at that time. Makes me laugh all the help books on breast feeding and sleep when really they are all individual problems and we all bumble through *
*with professional help

tiktok,
I will go to weigh the baby on Friday. LAst wednesday I checked his weight and it was OK but I will go this friday to check again, as when I weigh him at home- it sows that he does not put on weight.

Yes, he has he been solely bf since birth ( in the hospital we gave him 3 bottles and that was it, after that - bf only)

I did give him little milk in a Calma bottle just for practise, not for full feeding ( sort of when he was 6 weeks - just 1 bottle of 20 ml in 3 days so that he gets used to bottle - I will go to work when he is 7-8 months old) CAlma bottles supposed to imitate bf flow...

"Why do you think you have less milk than before" - it is because my output when pumping after the feed used to be 2 - 2.5 oz and now it is hardly 1 oz from 1 breast? I know the pumping is not indicator...

I feel that it is slow milk flow that frustrates the baby ( how many streams do I need to have on each nipple please?) during the night he will feed and will not cry, it is just during the day.

I feel so puzzled and sad that I do not understand WHY he cries when feeding.
he does not feel full.

Today I tried switching sides and during one feeding he preferred LEft to right and was a bit calmer. BUt during the next feeding - again no success - he cried and did not want to continue feeding

what can I try to increase he milk flow - to see whether it is the reason?

fothergill, did your baby cried at night feeds as well or during day only?

music, home weighing is nowhere near accurate enough for any sort of assessment of bf, honestly, unless your scales are digital, calibrated recently, designed for weighing babies, and cost you several hundred ££££ :) Even then, weighing babies is a skill you need to be trained for. And even then, weighing a (normal, term, healthy) baby more often than once a month is not good practice (see your red book).

Please don't worry about the no. of streams from each nipple - this varies and it does not matter a jot, anyway.

Output from expressing is no indicator and in any case often reduces after the newborn period.

How do you know he does not 'feel full'??? If he is gaining and thriving, let him decide when he is finished. He may be crying because you are insisting on trying to put him on again....do you think this might be the case?

I can't remember what happened at night thinking about it..so no, I don't remember drama at night. Probably because she (I) was half asleep but she never fed for long anyway. There are a ton of reasons possible why your baby isn't feeding like the books say... so no one knows, I had two children that didn't feed for reasons I personally look back on and know that I shouldn't have stressed so much BUT If the drop-in clinic is worried then you should probably go along with what they want to do next.
In terms of improving your supply, have you tried feeding on both sides whilst offering more often, like every hour for 24hrs to see if you boost your supply? Are you rested (haha) and are you drinking enough liquids as that can have an effect.
Neither of mine were fulfilling the centiles or textbooks but they were playing and healthy and are up there with their peers now. I went to the support clinics and the doctors as you should just to make sure you're covering the bases.

after the feed ( after 3-5 min) my baby squeezes his head into his neck and bending his whole body - is it a cue to say that he has finished? also he sometimes pulls the nipple at the end of the "feed" - what does it mean?
doe babies give the cue to change the breast? I wonder whether after 3-5 min session at the breast he is showing me any signals ( apart from crying) to switch the breast?

I have been to baby clinic and my baby used to be between 9.1 and 9.8 graphs and now is on 9.1 ( he had to be 7.00 kg but now 8.84 kg). I can see that the amount of wet nappies have decreased as well. what shall I do? I am offering him breast at every opportunity but he does not want it?

Not sure of what you mean about the graphs and the weight, sorry, music. Can you clarify? Or what you mean by he 'had' to be 7 kg and is now 8.84 kg....???

sorry, he is now 6.84 kg. please please please what shall I do? I know he does not spend enough time on the breast - I do not feel as he is emptying the breast...

Thanks for clarifying. I still don't get the graphs thing - do you mean he is just above the 9th centile?

Has he actually lost weight?

the page in the red book has got: 91st, 98th graph. he used to be in between these graphs/ lines/ now he is on the graph that says 91st centile. he has not lost weight - just put less than expected...And I am not too concerned about it BUT I am concerned that he is not emptying the breast. there is just 1 let down - he will eat and then stops and does not want to wait for another let down. he eats after naps, not before.

Ah - yes, at that weight he would be way up there in the 90s!!

He is a big baby - there may well be a period of catch-down while he finds his level.

Babies don't need to, and actually, can't, empty the breast - I've just written something about this on another thread :)

No one can count their letdowns. You may feel one, you may have 5 :) You may feel none, you may have 10 :)

Given there is no worry about his health or weight, how about going with the flow and seeing what happens? If he stops after x minutes, accept that he has had sufficient. Let him stop. Don't keep trying to get him on again. Watch for his needs - if he needs to feed he will tell you.

At 10 weeks, some babies, esp the big ones, do get what they need in a short time. I don't think you need to worry about his nappies either - babies only give cause for concern when their nappies are consistently dry. Maybe he is taking less milk in than before - that's ok!

music, maybe you are over-thinking this. Your question about how many streams, your consciousness of the let down and concern about how many, your timing of the feeds and the worry about emptying the breast make me think this is an issue of confidence - that is, the breastfeeding and the baby are fine, but the confidence and trust in the process is wobbly....what do you think?

Yes, I agree I am not confident. I had a bad experience with my first baby ? he used to the bottles, so had to express for 7 months, so I am so keen to get it right this time.
Honestly, my baby will drink milk from the first let down and then stops ? he will not stay on breast more. I tried to switch breasts, but he is not interested. I have noticed that there has been a decrease in his wet nappies ? I just think what I could improve the situation as everyone says to watch ? output? ? a number of wet nappies. I just know his weight will go down if he does not drink milk?

music, output at 10 weeks is not a crucial sign at all...back later gotta rush.

Just to clarify - 'output' is part of what you look for when bf is getting going. You'd want to know the baby is weeing and pooing. There would be concern if a new baby had dry nappies or did not start producing yellow poos by day 4-5 or so. But beyond the newborn stage, there is no way of monitoring this accurately - you certainly don't need to count wet nappies or compare last week's weeing output with this week's, and you'd only be concerned if you had a baby who really did not wee over several hours...but there would be other signs that baby is not well.

music, you are trying to quantify something that can't be quantified (see your concerns about the no. of let downs and jets of milk). Feeding a baby is a process that does not lend itself to that sort of precision.

Going from 98th centile to 91st is absolutely normal, well within what you might expect a baby to do, really. It's called 'catch down' and is a recognised phenomenon.

How would you feel about just letting him stay/go on the breast when he wants, and accepting that feeds are short, without struggling with him to get back on or switch sides or whatever? Really tune into what he seems to want? And if that sounds a scary thing to do, you need to ask yourself why it's scary....and share these feelings with someone you trust and who has some knowledge of babies and bf, and who can check your baby is ok. A good HV would be great for this, but they are not always that able to do it.

thank you, you are right. I am just scared into tune in with the baby and trust that he takes what he needs... It is so true that I am quantifying and feeding is more than just numbers ... I will try to work on my confidence and let you know how I get on.HV gave me misleading comment " The baby is messing you around, he needs to stretch to 2.5 - 3 hours and he needs to eat longer" I cannot trust HV, so I prefer to talk to you!

music, the HV's comment is ridiculous and no wonder that has caused you to lose trust in her :(

I can't think of anything more unhelpful to say than her comment