me again - problems with evening bf and dd refusing to feed

[tenacityflux]

I am doing better and nearly 9 week old DD is gaining weight but she has a hard time feeding in the early evening. At the moment we usually have a peaceful 1 hour feed at 1 o'clock, i then take for a walk for an hour were she sleeps in the sling and she then feeds at 3.30/4.30 but can get fractious- coming off the breast, crying, sounding frustrated; then the worst feed is at 6.30/7.00 when she barely feeds at all and gets hysterical - she does finally have a bottle them - all other feeds she feeds calmly and with a good latch.
i have tried massaging my boob, walking around as she feeds, winding her and swaping boobs but nothing seems to help.Could it be she needs a longer gap between feeds as she may be too tired to feed? i go and express if she dosn't feed well, i never get much any time but at this time nothing from the boob she tried to feed the most from and a tiny bit from the other, 1 oz at most. Any help would be great.

what about lying down to feed her? i found this really helped dd when she became fretful when feeding. in fact, we almost always lie down to feed now unless we are out and about (she is 8 months). there was another thread where a few people found this helps - especially if you have big boobs

sorry if this is something you've already tried.

Thanks for the suggestion, I actually tried feeding lying down tonight, she loves it during the night/morning but no avail, but then maybe she was too stirred up by then? Did your DD grow out of this?

I had exactly the same problem, they're tired, you're tired, BF is an effort! I knew that the supply was getting low late in the day, so at the 5pm feed tried to keep her on one side only, then give her the other first after bath. If she came off that one, I'd put her on the other side, if she got fractious I'd give her a little from the bottle before offering the breast again - usually was enough to take the edge of her hunger and get her happy to BF. I also try swapping from side to side. We've kept that up - now after bath she has a feed on both sides, then a few ounces of EBM from the bottle.

I know there are schools of thought about this making my supply drop further, but we've been doing it about six weeks, yes, supply is probably lower, but I'm not in tears every other night so it's working for me. Hope you find something that works for you!

well, we never really went back to sitting up to feed, so i'm not sure! just find lying down works really well. she's too nosey to feed in an upright position - so lying down in a quiet room helps her to concentrate too!