Enough milk

[LittleJack15]

My little chap is 4 1/2 months old. He feeds in the morning great but then when I get out and about he goes four hours then has a tiny feed turns his head and won't go back on the breast. A lot of the time he gets distracted then keeps turning his head. I'm worried he is getting enough milk?

I think 4 -5 months is a really distractable age! My DD made up for it by dramatically increasing her night feeds so beware of that one. I found I had to do her daytime feeds in bed or she wasn't interested.

I think best way of checking he has enough milk are wet/dirty nappies and if he is putting on weight, seems alert, reasonably happy etc.

They do get much more efficient at feeding as they get older too.

Why would he not get enough milk, littlejack? He is healthy, he is thriving, the milk is there....he is not gonna deliberately reduce his intake.

This age is indeed very distractable. You'll have seen lots of posts about it....and about how babies may feel very quickly, but they do get what they need at other feeds, so over the 24 hours they do take what they need :)

My little nutter can seem distracted by everything and anything. It's not your milk. It's just everything else in the world is more interesting at the moment

I'm a bit of a worrier. Because some times he goes a long times between feeds. He looks real health and chubby and has about 7or8 wet nappies a day.
Just recently he dropped a centile. Which I didn't understand why because he looked gd.

Dropping a centile is very normal - the guidance is that healthy babies can fall through two centile spaces without there being any need for concern, and even then, the majority of babies who fall through two are just fine....it's something HVs should check, when they see a baby who's fallen that much, that the baby is fine and the mother is not trying to do anything like restrict his food intake.

One centile space is absolutely not worth worrying about :)

What would help you stop worrying and gain confidence in breastfeeding, littlejack?

I know I worry all the time. I think because it wasn't so great early on I always think it's bad if something else different crops up.

I can understand that....mothers who have had babies who were very ill, or preterm, find it takes a while to stop worrying even when their babies are bouncing with health :)

(And of course it's a parent's job to worry at some level all the time, even when their kids are grown up)

But it seems to me, littlejack, that you would benefit from talking through what happened at the beginning to get it all off your chest, so you are not seeing every developmental stage or behaviour as a reflection on your milk....it sounds exhausting and more than most mothers have to cope with. You can do this by speaking to a good friend, or a health visitor if you have a good one you feel comfortable with, or by calling a breastfeeding line. I'm not talking about an informal chat, really, but a specific chance to talk about everything that happened - you'd need to say to the friend/HV/breastfeeding counsellor 'I think I'd like you to listen to what happened to me, so I can just process it all and move on.'

Up to you - but you sound such a caring, gentle and conscientious mum, who'd find motherhood a lot happier if you could take some of the nagging worries out of breastfeeding :)

PM me if you want some ideas on where to call, or of course you can go to Mumsnet's lists of bf help.

Thank you