DD stopped breast feeding after an ear infection.

[matildasmama]

My DD has stopped BF. She has had an ear infection since 17/11 & hasn't BF since 19/11. She is refusing, crying & is thoroughly distressed when I try to get her to latch on. She is on anti bio's & is much better but won't BF or take breast milk from a bottle.
She is 10 months old but I wanted to continue BF until she is 1 year.
Any advice?

Have you tried putting some expressed milk in a sippy cup? I would keep offering it to her as I'm sure she will take it when she's feeling better. Maybe go back to basics, lots of skin to skin and cuddles and she may help her self when she's up to it again. If she has an ear infection it might hurt to suck at the mo so don't loose hope just yet.

Thanks...will keep trying. Have added to her food so hopefully things will improve.

Nursing strike, have a look on kellymom for info on what you can do.

Maybe try some different positions?

My dd is 9 mo and she was extremely reluctant to bf last week when she had a cold. If I tried to feed her in cradle position she screamed, arched her back, wouldn't let me. But she was clearly still hungry, so I tried lying down with her to feed and it worked. She also seemed to favour one side over the other. She's now back to normal.

I don't know if she had earache but she had a bad cold, blocked nose etc which I think made feeding uncomfortable, so might be similar for your DD.

She also had a phase when she was younger when she would only feed sitting on my lap upright so maybe she had ear / tooth pain then.

Similar to you I really want to get to at least 1 year, so I was quite worried and upset that she was giving up bf for good, but she is now all back to normal so I'm pretty sure it was her cold.

Thanks everyone.
This is reassuring that she may return to her old ways!