12 week old fussing and crying at breast

[amelie427]

Hello

My boy will be 12 weeks on Monday.

He's been a good feeder - jumping centiles and generally doing well. Feeds often, on demand - every 1.5-2 hours during the day, and every 3-4 hours at night. We struggled with a fast let down for a couple of weeks but he seems to be handling that better now.

The last week or so, he's started to fuss and cry every time I try to feed him. He's making his usual cues and chewing everything in sight, but won't take my breast without a battle. I've tried all sorts of positions but it doesn't seem to make a difference. He seems to be slightly better if he's just had a sleep. He always used to feed to sleep, so now I'm rocking him to sleep and offering a feed when he wakes. This usually helps but not always.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? It's making me dread every feed at the moment so I'm really hoping it's a quick phase...

Thanks

Hace you checked his mouth to check it's not sore? It could be teething?

I'd give one of the Bfing Helplines a call this evening and see if they can help.

Skin to skin might encourage feeding so perhaps have a bath together or strip him down to his nappy and go to bed with him and see if that will encourage feeding.

I was wondering about teething but I'm not too sure what to look for (first DC). From what I can see his mouth looks like it always did.

He doesn't have flushed cheeks and isn't dribbling, but is that not always the case?

I suspect a couple of things have happened. At this age they start being able to go much longer between feeds, so it may be he's spacing them out just not hungry. They are now bigger and more efficient at it, so feeding changes a bit.

Babies naturally feed more when they've just woken and are still a bit dosey. Not feeding to sleep is a good habit to get out of anyway IME, much better to break that association early on.

The second thing is the chewing his hands is no longer a sign of hunger now he's out of the newborn stage. Instead hand chewing, sucking fingers/thumbs becomes part of a developmental stage and continues for a while.

We had a bottle of expressed milk in the fridge and my DP has just successfully give it to him without warming it (he has refused bottles in the past).

As it's cold, could this be soothing his mouth, if he is indeed teething?

My dd did this, it seemed to indicate that she was tired rather than hungry and offering her my boob just frustrated her.

I worked on getting her to nap longer and tended to feed after a nap rather than before (not always though!)

Also around 12 weeks they go through a massive developmental leap and can generally be quite grumpy.

Have you tried switching breasts or a different position? It might be that the milk isn't flowing fast enough and he's getting impatient or conversely that it's too fast and drowning him! Used to make my babies really annoyed.

My 14 week old screams blue murdercries and fusses occasionally when I try and feed her, it's because she's just not ready yet and or she's overtired.

It happens more in the early evening from 6ish onwards. I either leave her for a bit longer, get dh to distract for a short while to try and calm her down or persevere patting and rocking whilst offering a boob as she gets too het up to latch properly and then screams about that!

Dd is sucking on her hands constantly and has recently managed to get her thumb in there so I only use it as a hunger cue now if she starts getting irate after a while.

Oops strike out fail!

Thanks everyone. I think we may have moved on from such frequent feeding then and i need to look out for new feeding cues.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breastandbottle_feeding/1650946-EBF-12-week-old-and-hunger-cues

You do just fall into sink together once breastfeeding is established. Cues also become more about the sounds they make. Sounds like it's all going very well!

Thanks refred, interesting thread.

Fingers crossed it'll get easier over the next few days.

My DS is 3.5 months and we've been getting this fussy time between around 6-10pm every night for the last couple of weeks. Every time he comes off and starts crying I pass him to DH to calm him down and after 10-30mins we try again. Am hoping it's just a phase.

Sound like he could be over tired Sugar. Around this age they really fight sleep once overtired and are much harder to settle.

Awake it is still only 75-90 mins so not long if your bathing etc as you would want to feeding it putting them down 15 mins before they reach the tired zone. These are quite helpful.

Thanks refred - DS doesn't nap much which I'm trying to change so could def be overtired. We're baby-led ATM but I think I need to do more to encourage him to nap.

I have a 12 week old too, she can be a bit fussy at the breast and cranky. She doesn't like day naps. Think I might be offering her boob too much just out of habit.

The trick with naps is to make sure after an hour awake you start thinking about getting them to sleep. Doesn't really matter how you do it buggy, cuddle, boob, whatever works what is important is getting them napping regularly.

I was Baby led with my first (and clueless, assumed they would drop off when tired) and he is still a terrible sleeper at 5 yrs. My second i made sure she napped regularly from the start and she is an amazing sleeper.

They are different personalities of course but I have no doubt my lack of knowledge has made his sleep more difficult. I'm pretty baby led with e writhing else though!

Has anyone got tips on how to get them to nap without breastfeeding to sleep?
My 11 week old breast feeds to sleep and naps only on my lap. I am sure hes often over tired and would benefit from better napping. It's been too hot to swaddle.

Any tips and recommendations on what to read welcome thanks.