11wo ds pulling back when feeding, latch disappearing to almost nothing.. can you help please?

[smk84]

11 wo ds is EBF and over the past 24 hours keeps pulling back once latched on, eventually his latch is almost nothing and i have to take him off and relatch. Once back on, the same might happen again, or he might settle to feed occasionally. Also, during many feeds he is pulling around a lot and getting frustrated. Last night he was pulling off before he even got any milk and getting very upset about it all (as was I!). It was so distressing for both of us that we gave him 2oz of EBM and he then calmed down and BF again shortly after that and settled to sleep for 7 hours. He didn't have any problems on the bottle (and he has only ever had one other bottle and no probs caused by it). I have tried feeding in different positions and seems to be the same. It has carried on today, including the getting frustrated part this pm.
Things I am pretty sure of...
It's not overactive letdown or oversupply (has been sudden change, he has sometimes spluttered a little during initial let down but has gone on to feed very well anyway. I certainly don't have oversupply, if anything I question if my supply is good enough).
It's unlikely to be thrush (but I will get that checked again)
He is well - ne temperature or cold or anything.

Could it be teething? (hands in mouth, plenty of drooling, but gums not looking sore) . Could it be something else?
I am going to do an evening of skin to skin tonight to see if that helps, including a bit of biological nurturing in the bath (we can't seem to manage it on dry land!). Is there anything else I could do do you think? Thank you :)

I don't really have any ideas but just to say my twins (both of them) have been doing something similar to this. A lot of the time they just break off completely but other times they pull back further and further away from the boob and eventually I have to re-latch them. I thought it might be teething (lots of fists in mouths, etc) but tbh I don't know. They've been doing it for a while now (week or two?) and I sometimes wondered how they were even putting on weight but they're absolutely fine in the weight department; obviously growing plenty.

My other thought was that, as we call it in our house, they could be having a 'growth wane' (as opposed to the popular 'growth spurt') and therefore just don't want much milk.

You say your baby was getting frustrated which sounds like he's still hungry - but how is he if you just take him off the boob and sit him up/do something else? Coz my DT1 especially will get really frustrated and upset sometimes, which at first I thought meant he was hungry, but actually he just doesn't want it, and brightens up as soon as I stop trying to feed him!!

Mine are just over 21 weeks btw.

My dd did the same in regards to the pulling back. The first time it was reflux but I kinda knew that was the problem due to other side effects

However more recently she's been doing the pulling back for no apparent reason. Turns out we had thrush n the feeding was causing her great pain

Could he be trying to activate your let down? I know my dd does this 3 or 4 times in a row then stops when the let down happens. Bit like she cannot wait for the milk so does whatever she can to get it started!

DD2 does this when she is tired but not hungry, she wants to suckle but doesn't want the mill/can't fall asleep.

I give her a dummy and rock her to sleep. If she hasn't stopped crying and gone to sleep after a short while then I know I'm wrong and it is hunger after that I just have to try and calm her enough to feed or give in on my daily bottle.

Hi smk84, I have read a few of your posts recently and thought "tongue tie" and then seen it was you posting.

I really do wonder if your ds's tongue is still restricted in some way. It is possible for tongue tie (especially posterior tongue tie) to reattach, or perhaps it wasn't released fully enough. Did you have any bodywork done before and after the tt release?

I thanks for ideas and support. I am thinking the pulling off might be because of fast let down, because he does seem to be struggling with the flow when it happens, but I just don't understand why this would start happening after all this time .... Raspberry - when you say one of those feeds - do you mean that it doens't always happen? Softly I have wondered that too. Lemele you make a very good point - I was starting to wonder about whether he might have actually finished feeding but not wanting to come off, and i have just moved the boob slightly and he is off so he has already let go really sometimes, and then is awake and content.

Hey OP

My DD2 was displaying the same behavior that you have described.

It when on for weeks, in the end I kept a diary of feeding, sleeping and general observations - armed with this I went to see my HV.

I bombarded the poor woman with questions about tounge tie, silent reflux and latching (I was worried as DD2 had started to drop down her growth chart).

When HV looked into her mouth she smiled and said that the problems were almost certainly due to the TWO teeth that she had!

She's only 16wks and had been content, sleeping well and her had never been red or sore looking.

Now that her teeth have 'cut', she's feeding very well again.

mawbroon - we didn't do any exercises, a lactation consultant checked under his tongue a few weeks back and said she coulld still feel some resistance - but i literally can''t see anything, and the initial snip really didn't change anything at all. When we saw her feeding was actually going quite well. I did ask feeding midwife last week about exercises and she said they didn't recommend them.

IME this kind of behaviour is to do with mouth pain - either thrush, or teething have been the culprits for me.

Try rubbing a little teething gel before a feed, unless you can see any sign of thrush in which case get it checked out.

Persevere, unlatch when he does it and relatch with a deep latch and hopefully it will pass.

Was it a posterior tongue tie? There is nothing to see with a posterior tie unless you know what you are looking for. Or possibly there was an anterior tie snipped, but a posterior one still remaining.

there's no sound on it btw.

Have I mentioned the facebook tongue tie support group to you before? There are some really knowledgeable people on there who could give you better advice than me. You can post pics of baby's tongue and they can tell you a lot about what is going on.

Sorry to crash but what's the Facebook tongue tie group called please?

tongue tie babies support group. It's a closed group but you can just request to join.

Thank you

mawbroon yes it was posterior - I will try taking a photo and uploading it to the facebook site, but i am starting to think it is more to do with the amount of milk coming out due to all the spluttering etc. We are having problems with latching on though - I can never seem to get a deep enough latch unless we are skin to skin and I can't do that all the time. Raspberry thank you, I guess we just need to keep trying different things and see what works. I tried being reclined to try to slow the let down but it didn't make any difference. thanks again, just chatting about it makes me feel a bit calmer about it all !

If his tongue is still restricted, he will have trouble co-ordinating the suck/swallow/breathe pattern which will be why he is spluttering and why the reclined pose didn't make much difference.

My ds does this too, he had a tt snipped at 1 week but it was confirmed last week that it is either re attatched or wasn't snipped enough. He also does the fast rooting thing, rubbing his mouth back and forth across my nipple and bobbing his head up and down.

thank you, mawbroon iswum , but why would he start this now 7 weeks after tt was released ? rachog - how old is your ds now? are you going to get it snipped again? bf seems so bloomin hard !

He is 6 weeks now, we are just waiting for another appointment.

For 2 whole weeks before it re attached we had lovely feeding, sort of a tickily sensation, no pain at all, that's what is getting me through. Knowing how it can be.

I'm not sure why he would start with it now smk, but I know ds1's tongue tie symptoms didn't stay the same all the time

hope it comes for you soon then rachog
mawbroon thank you - that's interesting to know that tt symptoms can change. we are really struggling with latching back on after he has come off (with what i think is fast flow) - he never seems to open as wide as at the start :( i think it's also making him windy being on and off all the time. at least it seems to get better as the day goes on (and my milk volume goes down).

Have you thought about contacting milk matters to get some expert advice about his tongue tie? It really sounds as though it hasn't been properly revised.

Thanks, I hope you get sorted too. It's so disheartening when feeding is hard!