Hi, posting because I'm at a bit of a loss really. I have a 20 week old and am exclusively bf. To start with I actually found bf straightforward, she had a good latch straight away and my supply was good.
Just for background we did have had some issues with colic, her digestion and poos, I won't go into detail as I don't think it's that relevant but essentially I am now dairy free and it seems to have settled things. I don't think it was severe CMPA but more of an intolerance.
Anyway I'm now having some big issues with fussiness at the breast. She will suck for a few seconds and then pull off crying and squirming so much I would drop her if I wasn't holding on to her well. This has come and gone since about 14 weeks but this last week or two in particular seems really bad. Initially I thought it was impatience for the let down which I think it may have been to start with. I would have to start the feed walking around with her and jiggling her a bit to distract her and then only sit down once I felt the letdown and her sucks becoming more rhythmic, otherwise she'd just keep fussing and pulling off. A bit annoying and inconvenient in public but manageable.
But lately even this doesn't work. I can tell she's hungry because it will have been a while since her last feed and I know her hunger cues; and she always starts sucking but pulls away almost immediately and squirms. Even if I manage to get a letdown she still does it.
Today for example I was out for coffee with a friend after a long walk in which she'd had a really long nap so it was time for a feed. She was happy as Larry when she woke up but then started screaming and squirming when I tried to get her to latch. Also the squirming carried on to the point where we had to quickly finish our drinks and make a move as she wouldn't sit still on my lap and the only way to calm her down was to get her moving in the pram again. This isn't the first time it's happened and it's making me dread going out on public, something that I never thought would happen as she is usually a very chilled baby. Oddly I've recently discovered that if I put her on the boob after a nap but before she's properly woken up (I guess sort of a dream feed) none of these issues happen and they don't happen during the night either. But that's the other thing, she's going through a sleep regression atm so her naps are all over the place and don't always coincide with when she's hungry if that makes sense. So if I don't feed her more often than she naps she'll just get even more cranky and 'hangry' iyswim.
Can anyone shed some light as to what is going on? She's just so squirmy! Another thing that may be relevant is that my period came back around 14/15 weeks and I've read that this can affect the taste of breast milk- this sort of coincides with when the fussiness started so could this be part of the issue?