How on earth can I bf 3 month old dc2?

[SpacePod]

Can anyone help me with advice about bf second child? I bf ds1 for a year and intended to do the same with ds2 but after 3 months it seems to be getting impossible.

In calm quiet conditions (e.g night feeds) everything is fine, but in the daytime chaos of ds1 running around and making noise, the feeds are so difficult. Sometimes ds2 seems to be hungry, then arches his back and turns his face away and screams when I offer him the breast. If I persist, after a few minutes of screaming he sometimes settles down and eats happily. SOmetimes I manage to coax him by getting him to suck on my finger first, but usually this takes ages with me siting with boobs out and having to totally concentrate on him - so doesn't really work at any of the toddler activities I take ds1 to during the day.

Other times, the problem is he starts feeding and then pulls away and refuses to go back on. When he was little he seemed to have problems managing the early flow, but now there are times when he handles it well and calmly pulls away while the milk spurts out, before resuming feeding, so I'm not sure if this is still the cause.

Even when I stay at home with ds1 the feeds are difficult, ds2 pulls away and gets distracted by the noise ds1 makes, even by me reading stories or chattering to him about his play. He is not gaining weight as well as he was in the early weeks and Im getting to the point where I think it would be so much easier to give him a bottle (and better for ds1 too who is usually very patient when all of this is going on, but I can see how difficult he finds it)

can anyone please help?

crikey-is it possible to feed baby when first born is asleep/eating? or to ask\bribe first child to be quiet? he's not tongue tied is he? or colicky? my second snacked and slept from the get go-it was a nightmare-she didn't really gain but even now has eating days and not eating days-it just took us yonks to work out that that was the case-she's 15months old now and in the first 6 weeks of her life only gained 4 oz-i was deranged with worry but when i ditched the growth charts and realised she was thriving and clearly getting enough to sustain her level of activity and wasn't hollow eyed/dehydrated\fretful\all of the above i chilled a bit-i think i got a bit mental about it to be honest-it's easy done though-we fed succesfully until she was 10months old when she self weaned-she's still a skinnymalinks but is into everything and as bright as a button...try not to worry although i know how easy it is for someone to trot that one out-see your gp,my health visitor was a bit crap and a bit useless.

The pulling away/arching back etc sounds like it could be reflux (which doesn't have to necessarily be together with vomitting - it can also be "silent" reflux). Could be worth mentioning to your GP. I've had similar with ds2 as well (now 9 months) and often find it necessary to go to another (quieter) room to feed, but admittedly not a great solution for ds1.

Thanks for the replies. He's a calm peaceful baby most of the time, not particularly colicky and doesn't cry very much, mostly just round the beginnings of feeds.
What puzzles me is that it is a relatively recent thing. He was feeding pretty well until a couple of weeks ago and with things like reflux or tongue tie I'd have thought they'd have bothered him much earlier on?? ALthough, having said that, he did have quite a sicky phase and I've been trying to keep him upright after feeds as he gets upset if I put him down too quickly. Usually he passes out on my shoulder. I'd thought he was just a bit windy but now maybe I should look into the reflux possibility a bit more?

It's never easy is it [sigh]

I am going through exactly the same thing and could have written this post......

I find it so difficult with my ds. He's so easily distracted by my toddler that I hardly get any milk into him during the day. I just have to load him up at night.

I do the finger thing too and sometimes d it with a dummy too. I start him sucking and then do the switch. Sometimes it works like a dream, sometimes not.

DS2 went through a phase of doing the arching back thing when offered the breast. One thing that worked for me was walking round the room 'til he got latched on, then sitting down for the feed. The movement seemed to calm him.

Re. the excitable toddler... Haven't really got any ideas. When DS1 was little, I used to get DD to sit at the end of our bed and encourage her to play with a set of little people dolls (fisher price), which was reasonably quiet. We kept them up there, and only played with them when I was feeding, so she ended up thinking it was a lovely treat! I have very fond memories of that time...

It started getting hard for me with ds3 when he turned 3 months. I thought it was reflux, and had gaviscon prescribed but I'm not so sure now. A HV came and talked to me and she suggested expressing a bit of milk first (hand expressing, only takes a minute to get the letdown for me) so he wasn't so frantic. this has really helped. I have quite a strong flow also that he used to choke on. Also they do start to get more interested in their surroundings at this age so natural he might be fussing.
Also, do you have any sort of routine with him as he could just be tired with what you've described rather than hungry (I find it really difficult to tell the difference!). If you could manage to create a routine of sorts whilst still feeding on demand, you might be able to tweak things so you're not feeding in the middle of busy activities so much?

I started writing every feed and nap down a few weeks ago (ds3 is a twin though, and I was getting desperate for some routine) and then tried to work around the natural feed/nap cycle so I could do the school run etc. That way when you do feed him you absolutely know he's hungry & he will be less likely to be distracted. It's made quite a difference to the dt's, they have proper long satisfied feeds most of the time now instead of snacking & faffing around!

Finally, what about expressing so you could have a bottle with you for the difficult feeds?

It helps to discover I am not alone! Somehow knowing others are in the same boat it seems more 'normal' and hopefully more manageable, so thank you everyone.

Although DS2 isn't really in a routine as such, his days do follow a fairly usual pattern with feeds roughly 3 hours apart (closer if he asks for it) and naps every couple of hours. A lot of his naps take place in the buggy around ds1's activities. He's definately worse when he's tired and recent housebound days have been fairly disasterous (he's not a big fan of cot napping either neveronamonday).

I thought we'd cracked it today when I fed him straight up from his nap while he was barely awake and he ate brilliantly (eyes still shut so he didn't really notice what was going on around him). Then we were late home tonight so I think he was extra-hungry and he just went ballistic. Kept coming off after a few sips and screaming the house down. Couldn't get him to settle at all and he wouldn't even take the bottle of EBM from the fridge. A couple of hours later he finally ate for a few minutes and then passed out exhausted. And poor old ds1 missed out on bathtime because I was so tied up trying to settle ds2 down .

Was wondering if maybe he's old enough now to have an idea of what a nice feed is like and if it's not working out like that (he's too tired, too hungry, too impatient, windy, flow is too fast, let down is too slow, it's too noisy, I'm talking too much, whatever) then he gets upset and looses his rag.

Anyway, I guess he'll be hungry tonight

Spacepod, sounds like the key is trying (where possible) to stick to a routine of sorts so you can wake him before he's hungry. Some babies are just like that, dd (twin2) is fine waking up and waiting for a feed but ds3 wakes and 2 seconds later is screaming so I try to feed him from sleep. I know it's hard with other lo's (I have a 5yo and 2yo) but in the end the feeds take a lot longer with a screaming baby don't they? I'm just about managing it most of the time now but it's taken a while, life a lot less stressful now.