newborn rejecting boob

[hazlinh]

my sis' newborn (who is in hospital for jaundice) has refused her boob since day one and will cry after attempts to make him breastfeed.
but he will happily lap up ebm from a spoon/cup. any ideas on why and what to do to remedy this??
her nurses say it's cos "the little un's too lazy to have to do all the work at the boob". Is that rubbish or not?

My DD refused the boob too - when confronted with a nipple on days 1-7 she would turn away and look confused!! She had no rooting reflex and no inclination to suck.......she didn't take any milk whatsoever until she was 36 hours old.

I'm pleased (and proud!) to say that at nearly 8 months I am still breasfeeding. I think the nurses are probably right, he will need to learn to work to get his milk.

Has she tried syringe finger feeding him (this is what I had to do until DD was 14 days old)??

1. Express Breast Milk (doh!)
2. Load up a special syringe, though a normal Calpol style medicine one will do provided it has a long tip on it.
3. Slide the little finger into his mouth, upside down (so his mums nail is down on his tongue). It needs to be quite a long way in, until she can feel the roof of his mouth turn from hard palate to soft palate.
4. Slide the syringe tip into the corner of his mouth alongside the finger.
5. When he sucks squeeze the syringe a bit to reward the sucking. Make sure to try and not give any EBM unless he is sucking. The theory is that he'll learn the reward for his work quite quickly.
6. Reload and carry on until he is full!!

This is a time consuming method I know, but I was told to not give her a bottle as this might cause nipple-confusion and I really wanted to breastfeed ultimately. It was/is hard work but it's worth it. My dd got the hang of syringe feeding very quickly, about 3 days before it was easy as pie. The important thing for us was to get the milk into her - she was still losing weight at 6 days old. You wouldn't know it now - she is a whopper!!

Is she seeing a breastfeeding councillor? I think they have them at most hospitals in the UK?? I'm in the USA so am not up to speed on the NHS I'm afraid!

I hope he gets the hang of it soon, and please wish your sister lots of luck and patience from me.

mit x

Mit's tips sound great.
DS also had jaundice and we stayed in hospital for 5 days and just like your nephew, he refused the breast. The midwife told me it was probably a mixture of laziness and tiredness.

Does the hospital have a breast feeding counsellor on hand hazlinh? I was lucky enough to have a breast feeding specialist midwife on call 24 hours a day and by the time we left hospital DS was feeding from me very nicely.

Maybe try your NCT branch if the hospital cant give you any more help.

My DD was the exact same, she had jaundice and wouldn't feed from the boob, quite happy from a bottle though which upset me. I stuck with it and now she is ravenous at the boob! Took her a good week to get the hang of it though.

All these tips sound good. My niece had jaundice and took a while to get hang of the boob.

My dd also didn't even try to feed for first 36 hours, fed for next 36 hrs then hysterical everytime she was presented with boob. Ended up syringe feeding her for a day and then, as volume not enough due to bad advice, giving bottle of EBM/formula tops ups. Each time she was put to boob first and when rejected, given to someone else, if possible, to have bottle. They also didn't cuddle her in so she didn't get associate the comfort factor with bottle. After a week or so of this she latched onto me and we were generally very happy for the next 9 months! The upside was she was happy to take bottles to. One midwife and NCT breastfeeding counsellor were excellent in advice - reason for not bf put down to sore head after traumatic delivery - who knows?! Hope your sis sticks with it - if she wants to, there is hope!

Good advice here. The only thing I would add is to encourage lots of skin-to-skin contact. By that I mean baby in nappy only against mum's bare skin. Doing that means baby's feeding cues might not be missed and baby will enjoy comfort of lying cuddled at breast.

Skin to skin rocks.....

It's also great for overcoming what I bet has happened here: over-zealous, 'helpful' manhandling, which can turn some babies off. A baby who cries when attempts are made to feed him could have a headache from a ventouse/forceps, which could be an added reason. Maybe he had a headache, and has now been turned off by all the pushing and pulling. Skin to skin with only very gentle, relaxed opportunities to feed rather than a big production number can lure the baby back to what his instincts are there for.

I hate it when people label babies with a derogatory word like lazy or greedy. It makes no sense at all. It is also insulting. Poor babies.

tiktok, this is exactly what happened with my dd, it's great to hear this reassurance. She was a high forceps delivery, bruised and cut head and temporary facial nerve damage. Her first taste in the world was calpol. I used to put her to breast and if she got slightly upset immediately passed her over to someone for bottle so it wasn't a big deal (tho it was for me!) I did skin to skin too on advice of bfc and it's probably not coincidence, from what you have said, that when she did go back to feeding from me, we were alone in a room in peace and quiet.