Milk dried up at 9 months, refuses formula.

[Misswhitman]

I am 21 weeks pregnant with baby #2 and baby #1 is 42 weeks old. He was EBF from birth until I introduced solids at 6 months. He's always been great with eating a massive amount of solids without his nursing decreasing. He also had about 3 night feeds up until recently. I've noticed the past few weeks he's latching on and coming off after a few sucks, I thought this may be teething related as he's had 6 teeth through in as many weeks. He's now refusing to nurse for more than 2 sucks and there is no swallowing. I pumped tonight to check and one breast is producing colostrum and the other I got a dribble from after 30 minutes. He point blank refuses formula, I've tried every brand in every type of cup and bottle. He's not dehydrated as I'm making sure he's getting enough water (since he stopped taking milk) and plenty of wet nappies. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Sounds like it would be useful for you to speak to a knowledgable person in real life about this, Misswhitman.

Pregnancy can have a (short term) impact on milk supply, so it might be connected.

Expressing/pumping gives you no reliable indication of what happens when the baby feeds, either in type/appearance of milk or quantity, so the test you did could be misleading. Having said that, there's enough in what you say to make it worth taking action to encourage more effective bf.

Do call one of the bf helplines. Discuss ways of offering the breast more often, not just when he 'asks'. It's really hard to 'make' a nine month old do something they don't want to do, of course, so you might need to get creative - offering it when he's snuggly and sleepy, offering the other side when he shows he's done, having a bath with him. You might find other ideas if you google 'nursing strike', which might be a version of what is happening here.

Hope you get it fixed :)

Have you tried cows milk, obviously it's not advised but you could then maybe wean onto formula, or back to breast (if it's pregnancy related).

Tbh it sounds like my dd. I fought it for 3 months, but you can't force a baby to breastfeed so I gave in. She's happy and healthy and has a varied diet and plenty of water. Obviously that's not recommended if there are alternatives.

Thank you so much for your advice. Today he's started with cows milk thankfully (it was a whole lot of diversion tactics that did it in the end). I also managed to get him to take some formula in yoghurt. He's all over the place with his sleep at the moment, I thought it was milk related but I think it might be teeth again as he's had a lot of dairy today. The frequent night wakings mean I can get him to nurse for a couple of minutes so he keeps the habit. Crossing my fingers he resumes interest when it comes back in. I just feel so guilty.