Nursing Aversion

[BertieBotts]

I'm experiencing terrible nursing aversion at the moment. Still feeding my 2.5yo at bedtime, and I'm 20 weeks pregnant. I've been suffering this for a week or two but didn't realise what it was called until today. The descriptions are EXACTLY like what I'm feeling!

Has anyone else here experienced this/are you breastfeeding trained and have helped women through this?

Is there anything I can do? It seems to be worst when DS is pausing - you know how they will drink, pause, drink, pause. If the pause is more than a couple of seconds or if his focus has switched it comes back. Otherwise I can distract myself with a phone game. I normally jiggle him a bit or make eye contact with him which seems to prompt him into drinking again but sometimes it doesn't work and I have to unlatch him. Which makes him really angry which makes me really irritated. Not a helpful or relaxing cycle.

If it happened to you did you wean? I am not in theory against weaning, but I have absolutely no idea how else we would get him to sleep. We haven't been successful any other way. DH can't manage it, I can't manage it. The only other way he falls asleep is in the car or buggy (and he can't sleep there all night) or if he's already half asleep, then I can get him back to sleep by lying in bed with him and cuddling him instead. But that doesn't work at the start of the night.

Will it continue into feeding my newborn? I would be devastated if that happened! And if so would weaning and therefore having a break between feeding each of them help?

I can only talk from my own experience but I am currently feeding my nearly 3yo and 1yo and I did experience aversion periodically during pregnancy - mainly because it was extremely painful but also that “get off me” sensory overload feeling. I really feel for you because it’s a horrible feeling. I don’t really have any suggestions for that so hopefully someone else might be able to advise on that. As you can tell, I managed to keep going (I had thought my toddler would self wean during pregnancy and he didn’t!), continuing to feed felt easier than stopping despite the pain and aversion. However, what I mainly wanted to reassure you with was the fact that it was absolutely fine with my newborn and there was no aversion at all - it’s not something that even registered tbh. I still now have occasional feelings of “get off me” with my older child that I don’t have with my younger, but overall tandem feeding is a positive experience.

If you can get access to it (I borrowed it from my local LLL) there is a book called “adventures in tandem nursing”, half of which covers pregnancy, and I found it reassuring in terms of the range of women’s experiences and also the fact that it’s reasonable to put in boundaries around feeding for your own comfort if that’s what is required.

Saw this post and thought of you @BertieBotts 💐

Oh thank you, I actually follow her, I might have to look that up!

Thank you Tractor as well, boundaries are defo helping. I am being quite clear about what is allowed and what is not but it's difficult if he's tired and something's preventing him from falling asleep quickly.