12 wk old screaming at breast and I have NO idea what I'm doing in so many ways..,

[ilovetosleep]

I am sat here in floods of tears so please bear with me if I waffle or go on a bit.

We have had various problems - painful start, TT that was cut, grew back and re cut, not sure of current status but good movement of tongue. I have battled with fast let down/oversupply and also DS is not a particularly hungry baby.

Despite this he has maintained 75th-91st centile so we've been doing ok.

But the last week or so he just screams at the boob and I think I have made it much much worse by trying to force him on in desperation. I am so scared I have given him an aversion that we won't be able to overcome :( although he feeds brilliantly at night, having gone from 1-2 night feeds to 4. I am exhausted.

When he was little, feeds were difficult so I prompted him every 2 hrs rather than waiting for hunger signs, and he has never been able to aim and latch himself, I have to do a manouver to get the nipple in! So I now feel like I don't know him at all and wouldn't know if he was hungry or not. Also, time has flown so fast that I haven't thought about the fact that he probably doesn't need feeds as often as every 2 hours. So I have been offering and he keeps refusing. It's got to the point now where he screams as soon as I put him in the cradle position, even if I think he is starving. He takes a few sucks if I can get him on, screams at the let down and then won't go back on. Even though I am sure he is hungry. Then of course he has a little fire milk, enough to tide him over, but he's never getting a good long feed in. God knows what its doig to my supply. I have been known try and hold him on by holding him really firmly and I think this has scared him :( can't begin to explain how bad I feel. Bf with ds1 was such a lovely experience and this is just a battle.

He woke at 7 today and has only fed for about 2 mins on one side so far, at about 8am when he went to sleep for a nap. At about 10, he started crying, I thought he might be hungry, offered the boob and he latched on initially but kept pulling off. he did this about 3 times before getting hysterical at the mere sight of my nipple and now he has fallen asleep in my arms. He probably drank a very small amount.

I just so want him to feed but maybe he just doesn't need that much milk. I am also extremely anxious that he appears to be reverse cycling as I am beyond tired and ds1 is missing out as I'm just an exhausted wreck. So I'm caught up in the idea of tanking him up in the day but that obviously isn't working.

I just don't know what to do. I suppose a long period of skin to skin might be an idea but that's hard with a toddler around as well. I need to get on with day to day life. Should I just not feed him until he's starving? How would I even know if he's starving? Wait 3 hours?

DS sees nothing comforting about bf with me and it makes me feel so sad :( can we over come this?

I found various breastfeeding counsellors really helpful and they kept me going. I can't remember which ones I used as it is a while ago, but I notice you said that you are not in the UK and that La Leche are international - would this help?.

It's hard with a toddler too

Thank you so much, Breaking Buddhist your posts made me cry. I think I did go through this to some extent with DS1 too as all the feeding tips and issues I tea about seem familiar, although I only remember the wonderful parts as they went on for longer than the shit at the beginning.

I have already had people suggest early weaning and formula to solve night time problems. But I just won't do it. I know he's not going hungry as he is maintaining (good) weight gain.

It makes me feel so low though, today I am crying non stop at the damage it is all doing to my relationship with DS1. I so desperately want to play with him but all I eat to do while DH can help is cry into a pillow and sleep, I am so so tired.

On a positive note however, I have just managed to get a really good feed in by catching him just as he stired from a 2 hour nap.

Just wanted to say how well you have done to stick with it and understand how good experiences with older dcs help.

My dd behaved in a very similar way and had mild tongue tie, which led to the clicking noise and also wind which she was sucking in as she fed. I found she just didn't seem to manage lying down for a feed, so had to get out of bed for each night feed to sit in a chair and keep her upright. I did (out of desperation) take her to a chiropractor, who did some gentle tapping at the base of her skull. This weirdly did seem to help a bit and calm her down for the next 24hrs roughly, but was expensive. A wrap style baby sling was my saviour. I used to leave her and me naked from the top to the waist and wrap her so she could help herself, in an upright position. This left me free to do things with my older 3 dc and do housework etc. I even did food shopping with me wearing just a vest top under the sling and boob out the top for her to help herself to. It was that or screaming. Noone noticed as everything was covered.

It is possible that it is teething, some do cut them very young.

If baby does have an allergy or intolerance to cows milk, yes even a tiny bit in your diet could cause it. Several of my dc were lactose intolerant and I found soya milk made me really windy. There are now lots of alternative things to try and it would be worth doing.

Hope things get easier soon.

Hi OP, a lot of what you wrote rang true to me too, especially feeling like you can't read the hunger cues any more. With us it stemmed from the advice to try and preempt the hunger cries by getting in early, but then I just felt like I was offering all the time. We eventually settled in to a pattern where I would feed her when she woke up from a nap and when I put her down for a nap which sounds like a lot as she was only awake for a couple of hours at a time at that stage, but she only ever fed off one side and wouldn't take the 2nd breast so to me I was kind of splitting the feed each side of nap.

WRT to the fussiness I found that standing up helped as I was able to cradle and rock her and she would calm down and start feeding. That was also how I got her to latch in the very early days as we had some trouble with that and standing seemed to help then so I tried it again.

Where you said he has never been able to aim and latch himself, and you have to do a manouver to get the nipple in... I am still pretty much doing this at 6 months! She has never been a great latcher but in the end that wasn't such a problem. I just help her on and be done with it!

I'm not sure I can offer much advice about the night vs day feeding, are you switching sides in the night? Or staying on the same side? Would he get more 'filling' hind milk by staying on the same side? With the day feeds, maybe let him go until you know he is definitely hungry (you will know when it happens! He will let you know) and he might feed a bit more ... Sorry not an expert, only doing it for the first time myself but we muddled though and by 16 weeks things had really settled down.

Gosh this does sound difficult. For what it's worth I think it's possible multiple things are going on here, none of them obscure or rare ( and I think c m p allergy to your minimal dairy intake is really unlikely). It could be over- supply, and behaviour related to the age he is, and also the mis-communication we talked about. By now feeding should be reliably calm most of the time. There is something up! Finding a good bfc to really talk it through could be a helpful first step. Read up about over supply too.

Thank you all so much. It's so nice to know that other people understand. In answer to some Qs - I hae been offering 2 hourly until recently because, as you say McFlickle, he only ever wants one side and has be we really wanted the second - although I always offer. I do think maybe when he gets a bit bigger he'll take two sides and that will keep him going longer - but he's a 91st centile baby and you'd think he'd be on 2 sides by now.

I do think that I have oversupply. I've read up on it an tred a few of the techniques, but DS just gets so angry as soon as the milk starts flowing. I'm going to make more of an effort to catch let down in a muslin as this seems to have some degree of success but I'm aware it won't help with cutting supply. I'm a bit scared of block feeding incase it has too much of an effect!

He pulled off and on and off today at every single feed, even when he was calm! I think you're right Tiktok that this is probably an age thing. But I can't help thinking he's uncomfortable too. What you say about feeds ought to be settled by 3 months - the fact that feeds were very settled until he hit about 8 weeks makes me think something is up. Despite the issues surrounding the TT, he was always happy to feed and always accepted the breast. The TT cause more problems for me than him.

Could the little white spots on his gum be the beginning of thrush? They are two tiny pimples that look like teeny white heads. I have read that thrush can cause baby to pull on and off and scream at the breast?

I am going to call a uk hotline tomorrow. I'm pretty sure there's noone local I can see but I will try.

Thanks again for all the support. I'm feeling a little more positive knowing that so many people have got through similar. I know that by 3 months feeding DS1 was only just becoming second nature, I just forget that sometimes as it ended up being such a long and happy experience.

I haven't read the thread, sorry, but noticed you might have fast flow. Have you tried lying on your back, putting the baby on top and letting him suckle from there? Slows it down a bit.

I'm glad you had some success offering after a nap.

As I said three months was the worst for us. A bf advisor explained our situation as ds has discovered the world in a big way but is unable to multitask so can't feed (suck swallow and breathe) while also processing sensory input too. The dozy post-nap feeds and dark quiet room kept us going till he mastered the multitasking :)

My ds also only ever took one side and I had a fast let down or over supply. I think that's what made feeding require all his attention.

Is there a bfing support group you could go to? I think you need some rl support.

I hope you are having a better day today, could you express some milk to let your dh help out at night, even one night with less interruptions would prob make you feel so much better!

I know it gets mixed reviews on here but I found The baby whisperer by Tracy Hogg useful in terms of understanding babies in general and if nothing else made me feel less alone when I was pulling my hair out at 2am!!

this was also useful

Oh my god - this is me and my 15week old. Everything you've said is what I'm trying to cope with as well - frequent night feeding, screaming at boob, fast let down. And yet maintaining his centile.

The lowest points have been alternating which nipple I'm exposing 7 times to try and tempt a feed (failure) and being told by the health visitor he's just a "clever baby" for feeding through the night. Oh, and being scolded when asking advice because he'd refused to feed for 9 hours through the day.

We're coping by side by side feeding and co sleeping, but I feel less able to go out now than I did when he was a newborn - that fear of a screaming breakdown and unable to feed him. Sadly the helplines I've called have been pretty unhelpful (lovely, but useless) and don't seem to have heard about problems like this before - so glad it's not just me!

Will be following for anymore words of wisdom...

I have a 13 week old son, & am having exactly the same issues. I'm constantly trying to work out if he's hungry, overtired, has wind, colic, reflux, constipation, etc etc. All I know is that something's not right. In desperation I've hired a maternity nurse to come to our house for 24 hours at the end of this week. I just need someone impartial and experienced to look at what we're doing and give some advice.

Hi, I'm back with a little update. Firstly, sorry to hear there re others going through this but at least it makes me feel like we are not alone. I have also heard similar stories in RL with babies exactly the same age, so maybe that has something to do with it (and wonder week 12?)

Anyway, we have managed to keep up feeds by me jumping on him as he emerges from sleep during the day but obv that is unsustainable with a life to lead and a 3 year old to run around after. I have seen a GP who prescribed ranitidine to see if reflux could be to answer for all this. Well after 2 full days on it, I haven;t noticed a huge difference BUT he no longer snorts and snuffles with congestion in the night, which I know is a reflux symptom. He has also gone back to doing a 4-5 hr stretch at the start of the night, although he continues to wake every 90 mins after that until 5am when I brought him in with me and we coslept until 7.30.

Yesterday he had his jabs which threw a spanner in the works, but immediately afterwards he had his only self-initiated daytime awake feed in the last 4 days, but we haven't had another since then.

Everyone around me is throwing CMPI at me but I just can't face giving up the very small amount of dairy I have in my diet, although I will after one more week of this if it doesn't improve.

I called LLL who basically said nursing strike, make the most of the regular night feeds, which is also not sustainable let alone a terrifying prospect for me!

I am also avoiding going out and about which is very unlike us, I usually hate being at home! I took DS1 to the park yesterday and had a hideous attempt at feeding in the hot sun and wind. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of milk down him. DS1 was extremely patient and lovely though.

Today I decided I am pretty much convinced oversupply is a big issue here (despite thinking that of he hasn't fed properly for 5 days then my supply surely would reduce?) Anyway, he had a sleepy post nap feed at 9.30, so at 1230 I decided to give it a go from properly awake, and he did immediately latch on, seemingly hungry, but as soon as I felt the let down he pulled off. I let the let down drain off and tried again, and he kept opening his mouth to latch then pulling away at the last minute. It ended in a bit of a screaming stand off as he was clearly shattered but hungry and had just decided there was no way he was latching on. I managed to eventually get him to feed by the dangle feed mentioned up thread. I was then able to pick him up and feed him in the usual cradle hold. Of course he fell asleep in exhaustion so I don't think he had a really good feed, but he did feed and thats the main thing. I just can't help feeling that battles like that are ultimately going to put him off BF. I think when he's too tired,the prospect of dealing with my let down is just too much for him! I hope this is something that will settle down soon. I thought milk supply was meant to stabilise around now?

It's getting exhausting and I desperately don't want to (and won't!) give up so I can see myself sinking until I just can't function anymore. It has to improve!