one-day bf strike - what to do if it continues???

[justkeepswimming]

DS2 is 7.5 months and went 24 hours without a bf (6pm last night to 7pm today).

He went to bed fine at 7 last night without a feed, took expressed milk from a bottle no probs today from both dh and me so lots of positives.

He screamed anytime i tried to feed him until tonight, when he screamed, then fed anyway.

I have been totally clueless what to do, only expressed cos i was getting so uncomfortable, and tried a bottle just to give it a go.

What should i do tomorrow if he goes back on strike???
Any tips for getting a striker to feed again? I know he is easily distracted but have tried going to a quiet room, even tried at 4am this morning when he woke up but he was having none of it

Not ready to stop feeding him but need to know what's best for him if he won't feed tomorrow.
Anyone else had this?

Sorry this probably isn't v clear, have had a glass of wine

Dont have anything to say but posting to keep this bumped for you. Have you done a message search? Hope he starts feeding again soon - Im sure he will

Have searche for you, it seems a normal time for this to happen - look yourself for lots of people whose little ones went right back to feeding. If it goes on this was linked to www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/baby/back-to-breast.html#strike

Hi - have been through this lots ages ago and happy to report am still BF at nearly 13 months...

Search on the name m o n k e y b i r d (no spaces obv) and nursing strike and you will find some threads from someone who looks and sounds, er very like me

Be reassured that if you take your time, don't force him, try to work on relaxing but having lots of naked skin to skin time, make access to your boobs as easy as possible (no bras, co-sleep if you can)

And if you can, try and look as if you're not even interested and oh look, your boob is just there if he wants it IYSWIM.

And if your letdown reflex seems slow, please try to do some of the conditioning of the reflex tips on the other threads on here.

Does he have a dummy by any chance? We did and the first thing we did was got rid immediately but offered boob to suck instead - worked really well...

A few of us have gone through this and you can keep feeding if you don't try and force it.

Try giving water? Some solids or more solids? Bit of formula in a cup? Even a full bottle of formula or two isn't going to hurt as long as you make the breast available when he wants it back...

thanks for the replies, went off to bed.

He doesn't have a dummy, eats lots of solids & drinks water/juice out of a cup.
He was constipated recently so we upped his fruit juice to help, think maybe fruit juice is yummier than bm? so back to just water in a cup.

this morning i tried the just sitting there with breast nearby seeing if i was relaxed would he feed, but no he would rather stare at ceiling

have given him more milk in a bottle this morning no probs and am off to bf group later so will ask for more tips.
watching him drink from the bottle he is looking around, watching ds1 and dad so i think the distraction is the main thing.
but he still wouldn't feed at 4am when he woke and would normally feed, even in a dark quiet room - fresh muslin and he went back to sleep, so it's a positive really...i think...

it's not the end of the world if he stops, will just have to decide if i'll express enough, or switch to mixed feeding or totally switch to formula. (at 7mo i can't skip formula can i and go straight to cow's milk?)
i fed ds1 to 12mo so really wanted to do the same....

off to look at the kellymom site, thanks again

If you're happy to drop the 4am feed, sounds like a positive. I would just keep offering morning and evening though, in a nice relaxed way.

Good luck with it.

well we've had ups and downs but think we might be back on track now.
he fed eventually late yesterday morning, then i tried feeding him with him sitting on my knee facing me - felt weird but he did it, then i moved him around to usual lying down position and he carried on. has been fine since then

think it was a combination of:
having given him lots of fruit juice (to help constipation)
him getting bored with lying down and missing out on things
and wanting to drop some feeds anyway.

and he slept through last night for 12 hours !

so hopefully, fingers crossed, all will be ok, and we can settle on about 4 feeds a day for a bit.

Thanks again for any replies & advice, was worried there for a while