Advice please - dd now fussing at breast but not bottle!

[cathcart]

Could anyone give me some advice please. DD is 5 months old and has only recently been taking the odd feed from a bottle (ebm) to prepare her for when I go back to work part time. She has been exclusively bf so far and has never had any problems.

She now feeds really well from the bottle but not so well from me. This is especially worse in the evenings when she is trying to fill up for the night. She fusses, whines and bites as if she is frustrated and last night, to see if it made a difference, I gave her 3-4oz of ebm ( all I had) which she wolfed down without a problem. Of course this wasn't enough so I tried to feed her myself and she once again became agitated.
This has resulted in her not drinking enough and going to sleep ratty and hungry only to wake again after an hour.

I have tried expressing enough through the day so that I can give her a bottle last thing instead of a bf but can't express enough to satisfy her.

Any tips on why this is happening and what you think I could do?

aw, come on!

My DD did exactly the same when I mix fed for a while. She liked the bottles better as it was easier and a lot less effort. I ended up ditching the bottles so she had no choice, it took a couple of days of "tantrums", also probably due to me having to build up my milk supply again, but she got over it pretty quickly.

Seeing as you have already established that she has no problem with bottles per se, why don't you ditch them for the moment and only reintroduce them when they're really needed?

Feeding from a bottle is much easier for the baby, no wait for let down, comes a lot faster. So she has decided to take the 'easy' option and gets frustrated with breast as the milk doesn't come as fast.
I seem to remember hearing that if you start the boob off by massaging or expressing so that the milk is already 'there' when she attaches that might help.
I used to give baby some formula in the evenings if other child needed attention and dp wasn't home, but had to make sure that I did bf first THEN bottle as otherwise baby would do the fussing and breast refusal.

Cathcart - when are you going back to work and what will your time away from the baby be?

You may not have to bother with bottles at all.

thanks.

thats kind of what i thought - lazy little tyke!

i had wondered about giving formula feed before bed but felt i was copping out a bit, also feeling a bit sad that she doesn't want mummy as much!

ooh tiktok - i had looked for you earlier!

i am going back to work one full day and two half days next month. planning to wean next month too but see about giving her 3 feeds a day (?)

btw - i didn't mean to suggest that by ff I would be 'copping out' - i just wanted to see if I could find a solution first.

No need for bottles at all, cathcart.

You baby can start to have water from a cup and solids , and breastfeed when you are with her.

A six month old baby whose mum is not there for as little a time as you will be - a day and two half days - can happily go without a breastfeed and make up for the time away mornings, evenings, night and on the days she is with you.

Many people on mumsnet have done this.

You may need to express to comfort on the whole day you are away.

The bottles are clearly interfering with your breastfeeding, so you can drop them.

Your choice of course but seems to me your battle at the moment is not worth it

I meant start to have water and solids in a month.

tiktok - on the full day that I am at work I will be away from dd fro nearly 12 hours. In your experience won't a baby cry for her milk?
I am worried because it will be very early in the weaning process and expected that at first she will be still taking a lot of milk. When I go back to work she will be 24, do you think it will hurt to wean a couple of weeks early to get her used to the solids. I plan to blw.

24 months

lol - 24 yrs - I wish!

fgs! I mean 24 weeks

12 hours is a long time, cathcart, I agree, and longer than most people experience...even so, she will mamage, as long as she can have some fluids from a cup, and you might want to experiment with this before you actually leave her for that length of time. If you really worry about milk, then again, she can have ebm or formula in a cup.

Personally, I think it would be worth starting a few simple solids (blw style) before you go back, so everything isn't totally new to her when you leave her.

Wd be a good idea to start a thread somewhere, asking for people's experiences.

thanks for your help, I'll give that a go

out of interest, are you a bf counsellor? How come you know so much?

Yes - brestfeeding counsellor with NCT, cathcart

aha!

tiktok are you there still?
something has just occured to me...I don't know why I didn't see it before!
For around the same time that dd has been fussing (last few days), she has had green poo!
Surely this is connected? Do you know anything about this?