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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

9 week old feeding strike?

7 replies

dkedm15 · 12/11/2022 21:12

Hello! My lovely little DD is 9 weeks today. She had phototherapy for jaundice at 2 days old following a hospital readmission, and had tongue tie sorted at 6.5 weeks. She had very stagnant weight gain and only got back to birth weight at 8 weeks, and has gained this week for the first time (midwives and health visitor didn't seem bothered because she's having good nappies, is a good colour, is not dehydrated etc but she was 91st centile at birth and is now 9th. We've luckily got a really good GP who's now monitoring her).

She's been combi fed since birth while my supply was coming in (and then advised to keep the formula top ups given her v slow weight gain). Managed to keep BFing throughout the whole time even with her tongue tie.

Fast forward to last night - she has been getting increasingly fidgety and fussy the previous days but would latch and have good feeds, but last night she was getting really upset at even being laid into position. What normally would be a 30-40 min feed across both boobs was 3x 3ish mins with expressed milk and formula offered in between when she was too upset to latch on. Today she's refused both boobs all day (think I got ~30 secs at one point but she pulled off and got really cross!).

Nothing has changed (and she necks the expressed milk no bother), her jabs are next week and she's at the tail end of a cold so not currently poorly. I've been pumping when she refuses the boob/at usual feeding times to keep supply going. We're currently doing skin to skin on my chest while we're waiting for her to wake up to start bedtime, and I'm going to keep offering her both with no pressure, but I'm just wondering if anyone has been through the same? Does this sound like a strike or has she just had enough of BF? I'll be contacting our local infant feeding team on Monday and we're at the doctors on Tuesday for her to be weighed again - hope it's not the end of BF after she's managed to keep it going through all the other things so it'd be a shame if this was it now!

Sorry for the essay. TIA x

OP posts:
LouLou198 · 12/11/2022 21:24

I think if it was me in this situation I would just give her a bottle. Although my dd was only a few days old at the time, she ended up being hospitalised due to dehydration because of my breastfeeding difficulties.

AlmostOver22 · 12/11/2022 21:26

Is she refusing just breast or all feeds?

dkedm15 · 12/11/2022 21:54

@LouLou198 thank you - sorry to hear about your DD, how is she now?

@AlmostOver22 just refusing breast, she takes expressed and formula via bottles (bit of messing when I give her bottles which she always does - DH is the main bottle feeder and she doesn't mess for him). Haven't had any issues with BF before - last night is the first time she outright refused and seems to have got a stubborn streak from me and has kept it up all of today too!

OP posts:
LouLou198 · 12/11/2022 23:19

@dkedm15 she is a healthy 11 year old thank you Smile. I remember as soon as she got to hospital a nurse gave her a bottle and she took it
straight away! I bottle fed from then on.
If she will take a bottle from your dh I would do that tonight. Keep expressing and maybe try again in the morning.

Thelongnights · 13/11/2022 02:36

9 weeks is a growth spurt week if I remember right... might be that she wants the bottle because its less work than drinking straight from the breast. My middle child dc preferred expressed in a bottle during growth spurts, she was just impatient and also got cross lol. She settled back to the breast within a couple of days. Very important to keep offering the breast to her as her demand for milk will be increasing, even if she won't except it, all stimulation will help. You might also want to increase how often you express, such a short burst (10 mins each side, 10 min break, then 10 min each side again) for a few hours in the evening to mimic cluster feeding. I hated doing it but it worked out in the end.

Hope all works out for you too OP, babies are such odd little things lol x

Phunny · 13/11/2022 19:19

How is it going? Kellymom is a really good website with lots of good advice about nursing strikes. You can try lots of skin to skin with no pressure like you say. Feeding in the bath. Feeding standing / walking around has helped me. Good luck.

dkedm15 · 14/12/2022 07:51

Thanks so much to everyone on here - sorry for the delay in replying! Genuinely don't know where the time has gone! I kept persevering and It was about 48 hours before she finally started BF regularly again. She's doing much shorter feeds now (apart from the one before bed which can be up to half an hour). I'm much more relaxed about it and not getting hung up on timings; just going with what she's telling me she needs and giving her bottle top ups as and when :). Thanks again x

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