11 month old won’t wait for letdown anymore

[MissMarion]

Hello all,

I've been exclusively breastfeeding my baby for a bit over 11 months now.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit difficult though. She has been nursing less lately as her solids intake has been increasing steadily and that's great of course as the goal eventually is for her to get her nutrition from solids.

However I think it might have impacted my supply negatively (slowed down my letdown?). She's very impatient for the letdown and if it doesn't come in 30 seconds (it never does) she fights to leave the breast or even bites me! So we end up doing bottles of expressed milk as she refuses the breast.

Would you have any advice?
Thanks!

That sounds really difficult. By 11 months they're so easily distracted. It sounds like it could be a nursing strike. People often confuse this with the end of their breastfeeding journey but it really doesn't have to be and this article gives lots of tips and information.

Do you pace feed with the bottle? Babies can get bottle preference and if you're saying baby is impatient for your let down it may be that they know the bottle is far quicker and easier unless it's pace fed. You can always simulate the wait for your let down on the bottle - give the baby the teat but holding the bottle up so baby can't get any milk and they have to suck and then after 30 seconds/a minute tilt the bottle to allow them to get milk (much easier said than done with an 11 month old!). Then continue to do this after about 5 minutes to mimic a second let down. I'm sure I read somewhere if you pace feed by bottle it should take 20 minutes or so to finish it.

Worth trying the expressed milk in a cup maybe to avoid bottle preference? Also, like that article says, lots of skin to skin with no pressure to nurse and trying to nurse when baby is very sleepy can really help. You could always try to stimulate your let down before you try to nurse with light touch massage/strokes and do breast compressions while nursing.

Good luck!