more interested in smiling than feeding!

[mouli]

My 3 month old DD loves feeding but recently has yaken to yanking herself off every 2 minutes to gaze around and give me a beaming great smile. Very cute but making feeding a verylong winded affair and I wonder if she gets enough at each feed. I don't want to stop feeding her, is this normal?

sorry, 'taken' to yanking herself off (along with a mouthful of my nipple...ouch!)

DS did this from about 4 weeks. He then took to falling asleep after 10 mins and refusing to wake up to finish the feed. He's on bottles now because his snacking was driving me potty. Sorry I'm no help.

It is a phase that will be short lived. She will get all that she needs at a feed because at 3 months she will be really efficient. If it drives you mad stop the feed. She will soon realise that if she doesn't pay attention the food will go. It may be that she is messing around because she has actually fed enough in a short time and you are assuming she needs more. No need to stop feeding at all.

mouli - same problem here. i agree with milch, usually it's because she's had enough, though sometimes it's wind and a burping does the trick.

DS is exactly the same mainly because he's nosey, i have started to have to feed him in a quiet room with no distractions, however if hes very hungry nothing will distract him

I had the same problem with DS at about that age - see postings called something like - the world is too interesting to feed. I found that where possible feeding somewhere quiet and comfortable was best but it was a phase and it passed. He soon decided that eating properly was more important. Feeds got longer again - but thankfully not as long as they has been as he got more efficient at sucking. Hang in there. I fed until 10 months when I'd had enough and he had very little interest.
Having said that I've got it to come again with dd - 8 weeks and now have no hope of a quiet feed anywhere except the middle of the night

Thank you alison222.
where could I find that article it sounds interesting?

My DS did this too for a while so I started to get into some rough routine. To make sure he had a proper feed I fed him every 3 or 4 hours to make sure that he was hungry. I also tried to smile at him/talk to him when he was feeding but not if he was yanking.

It was shortlived and he's still being breastfed now although he's down to 4 times a day and they don't last for more than 10 minutes (9 months).

Hang on in there!

My DD also does this! I'll tolerate it most of the time but not at bedtime when she is supposed to be winding down. I find that draping a muslin over her head so she can't see me to smile at helps her to concentrate (although it does look a bit like Michael Jackson's poor mite on the TV programme ) , and after a minute of two she gets the hint and settles down to feeding properly.

Message withdrawn

How about feeding in a dark room?

yes she is a real cutie! Latest trick is to now add two fingers into her mouth along with me and have a really good suck! Like the idea of a dark room and she does feed brilliantly at night, but daytime is still a very happy smiley feeding time, can't complain about my baby being too happy can I ?!!!

I would just enjoy it while you can! Sounds lovely, wish I could have b/f