Fussy breastfeeding

[Fran1987]

Hi all,
I'm hoping some of you may have some ideas to help me as I'm starting to get downheartened and frustrated breastfeeding my lo. She's fussing at the breast during feeds apart from the morning or early afternoon. She'll pull herself off after a few sucks, re latch, do the same thing and then cry, most evenings are unsettled and so my husband and I don't get a lot of calm time with her. She hasn't always done this and she fed well till 8/9 weeks, she's 11 now. Even with colic she wouldn't fuss as much as she does recently. She was on a top up plan from birth and we kept an evening top up going because she would feed from me for 30mins and then take a 5oz bottle still. I haven't been giving her this feed the last few nights in the hopes she will bring in more milk. She would settle really well with a bottle and be lovely and calm afterwards. She is normally a happy baby in between feeds, very alert, sleeping through the night and gaining weight. I really want to be feeding her myself and don't want to give in and go to formula if I don't need to, but at the moment it isn't a happy experience for me and I don't know what to do to keep her happy feeding from me of an evening. I've read about a fast let down but I don't think it's that from what I can tell. It's maybe a slow let down and where there's naturally less milk in the evening I wonder if she gets frustrated and doesn't want to work as hard for the milk. Has anyone else had this and found a good solution? Thanks in advance

I'm having the same issue with my almost 4 week old. She feeds fine through the night, in the morning and afternoon but in the evening seems to be hungry but either latches and get angry at my boobs or cries and won't latch at all. It follows a good feed so I'm not sure how hungry she is but she seems ravenous but won't feed. I assumed it might be colic or my boobs were empty. We are currently curled up with a white noise gadget which seems to have calmed her. She's asleep with a grumpy look on her face but can't be put down. She's had a good old scream tonight but it's only lasted an hour do far. It was much longer last night. Sorry i can't help but would be interested in other people's opinions.

My DS was really fussy yesterday evening and the evening before which is quite out of character. He wasn't feeding well so I ended up taking him upstairs, turning the lights right down and feeding in bed lying down (we co-sleep so he's used to that). He calmed right down and had a short doze and then we were able to go downstairs and carry on the normal cluster feeding session until going back up to bed. I think he was probably overtired and overstimulated, especially with my DD running around.

Also if she has been having a top up and is now sleeping through, she probably is having to work harder to up your supply as she hasn't been doing the normal evening cluster feeding and is no longer feeding overnight to boost it.

It is really common to go through a fussy phase around this age. Going back to basics-lots of skin to skin, being careful with positioning and latch can help (sometimes you and baby can get a bit lazy with latch after first few weeks).

The evenings can be hard with the fussy feeding/on and off/constant swapping sides but it is really common and is usually just a phase that passes.

Op - I've had great success the last two days by using white noise. It calms her down enough to latch on or allow me to rock her and help her fall asleep. My older dd had wanted to buy the baby a present and selected a £25 which I was reluctant to buy but dh wanted to indulge dd to make her feel involved. Anyway, it has this little remote control thing inside which plays 4 different songs, a heartbeat and white noise. Sticking it next to her head and playing the white noise has made a huge difference.

This is the toy:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B016QNP2S4/ref=mp_s_a_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1487431256&sr=8-2&keywords=zazu+heartbeat+toy&dpPl=1&dpID=415a1Bdqg4L&ref=plSrch&tag=mumsnetforum-21