Baby barely feeding - Advice needed!

[misslomi]

My baby girl is 16 weeks old and EBF, it's been a bit of a journey so far. I had mastitis at 3 weeks and again at 12 and just got over thrush about a week ago.

When I had thrush I was in so much pain that I couldn't feed her off the infected boob, I was pumping and giving her a bottle as well as feeding off the other breast.

Since going back to feeding normally baby girl is being fussy on the breast, she'll feed properly for a minute or 2 then suckle and then drop the nipple repeatedly for as long as I'll let her. If I swap to the other side she does the same thing. After I give up she will often spit up quite a lot of milk. She seems happy after these feeds and doesn't seem hungry anymore.

She's not like this all the time, at night she'll feed normally and when she first woke this morning she had a normal 40 minute feed which used to be standard for her.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Sorry I’ve not had anything similar but I know how hard it is when you’re EBF and they don’t seem to take as much as you expect so hopefully bumping

It could be the 4 month regression... They suddenly realise there is a world of excitement around this age and so feeding becomes less desirable, hence feeding better at night when there are less distractions around. Try feeding in calmer environments. Keeping an eye on the latch is probably a good idea too, as I'm fairly sure that could be resulting in problems such as mastitis and spit up.

This is good advice. I'd also give one of the BFing Helplines a call in the morning and talk it through with one of the BFCs

Came to say this too. Also keep an eye on nappy output and weight.

Feeds became so much more playful, for want of a better way to describe it, during the day around 4months for both my children. Feeding in different places and positions helped a bit.

Well done for preserving thought a challenging BF journey, I had similar issues so I know the pain but determination and frustration you're feeling.

Yes, the nice quick focused feeds of 12-16 weeks disappeared around 4 months and became SO fussy! I would concentrate on getting a good feed in to her when she was sleepy, and sometimes just stretched the time between feedings (eg dad was sent to walk her round and round the moterway services...) to get her to concentrate! The health visitor told me this is normal at 4 months, and as long as she stays on her weight centile or there abouts, let her do tiny fussy feeds (arghhhh) by day and she will do good feeds at night.

Solidarity - I had thrush at the beginning, agony. I just got to six months, we are still going but combi feeding. But we are not going to make it to 12 months and I have accepted that!

Thank you all for your advice! And yes, I think she could possibly be distracted, she's becoming a lot more aware of her surroundings recently.

@Herpesvirologist The pain from thrush was up there with child birth, bloody awful!

How's her weight gain? That's the important thing. If she's still gaining weight, she's getting the milk she needs somehow!