Was just about to post how fed up I am about having a baby with what I am officially calling an 'overlap problem'... but may have just helped myself out.
See Junior is 6.5 months and has been exclusively BF until now. Started him on various solids but not really interested (except in a piece of toast which he sucked VERY enthusiastically this morning). The issue is he's a big boy AND has had lots of nursing strike tendencies. Not suggesting the bigness is an issue per se but combined with the breast refusal, it has been I think. So, whenever he is ill, I have a period, or lately, in the evenings/nighttime, he cannot get a letdown quickly enough. So he latches on, pulls off and then repeast this, getting more and more desperate and hungry and tired, sometimes for up to 2 hours. if he manages to suck for long enough then he might finally get some milk but he gets more and more likely not too as the evening wears on. Yet I know from experience, the minute he gets the milk he is calmer for a while.
I tried everything - feeding him more in the day (another reason to refuse so I don't push it), starting evening feeds a bit earlier (ditto), expressing with a pump first to speed up letdown (stressed us all out), expressing instead, oh loads of things.
So with this happening, with two other children and no opportunity to build up the supply (since he wasn't sucking and I couldn't express) I finally gave him some formula over the last couple of days. I am telling myself that this is just like giving him something extra since he's still having lots of BF per day - but was worried this would just worsen my supply in the evening.
In fact it seems to have helped cos it means I can feed him at 4 and again at 7 and have a decent supply each time, without the unhelpful (in this specific case) cluster feeding in between.
But more helpful, on the advice of a BF counsellor, when he has his little feed at 4 (only seems to want one side which was exacerbating things cos once he tried to feed again later, the supply had really slowed), today I managed to hand-express the other side (well, a bit) into a bowl, mixed it with some banana porridge, and result! he ate a fair bit of that. I'm hoping this might keep the wolf from the door a bit longer until I can BF him again.
May have to still give a bottle or top-up in middle of night though since he's having a BF and then does not settle again for 2 hours, until he's 'finally' managed to get a second let-down. I cannot sustain this unfortunately as the whole family is suffering.
I know everyone says size doesn't matter but I'm thinking that he's the size of a big 9 month old now, yet most babies that size take in some solids to supplement their milk, no? Hence my calling it an overlap problem - too big and too frustrated to get enough, and too small to get enough nutrition from solids yet?
Or perhaps it's just a temperament thing or something wrong I am doing (although I tried and tried and tried at length the breastcrawl stuff, feeding in the bath, skin to skin - all that - for weeks, to no avail...)
Anyhow, the porridge was good and though I mixed a bit of cow-juice in, it was half BM, but I'd really like any tips anyone has for carrying on BF - perhaps will be easier when he's eating more solid stuff?