Baby fighting at the breast - 3 weeks old.

[cfc]

Hello, my son was 3 weeks old on Friday and we're getting through bf together after a shaky start.

I have a flat nipple on my right breast and the left breast is favoured as a result but this means that the nipple is getting sore, not majorly and not as a result of a bad latch, but perhaps simply overuse.

Anyway, I'll always put him on the breast I was using last for the start of the following feed. We do the whole feed, fall asleep, change nappy, feed some more, fall asleep, wake him up, undress him...change another nappy...and then he falls asleep again. I put him in the basket after a burp thinking perhaps he's done (this is all on one breast btw) and he becomes fractious in his basket. So I get him up again, put him to same breast and try to get him to take the remaining milk as I'm sure it takes longer than he's on to drain the fore-milk and get to the hind stuff - this I think is a problem as his poos are bright green and sloppy which I have read is the squits in little babies.

But he becomes really fractious then at the breast, windmill arms, pulling away with nipple in mouth (ouch!) and general squirmy bum antics.

What am I doing wrong? I want him to drain the first breast before I switch to the next one, do you think perhaps he's simply efficient now and can get to the good stuff quicker and finish quicker? We're talking only 20 mins here.

Help me! I get so frustrated with him, esp at night. I have to say he didn't lose any birth weight and at his 10 day weigh in had put on 5 oz - we're getting him weighted on Weds but he's producing good nappies, albeit bright green for the majority of the time (used to be yellow) and runny and these poos seem to take him a lot of effort!

Anyway, experts please cast your eye over my issues! Appreciated your time.

Cfc x

Sorry i'm not an expert but bumping up for you to get some help.

They do get more efficient at feeding but I don't think it's right to change to green poos.

Have you contacted your local breastfeeding counsellor? La leche league NCT and Association of breastfeeding mothers (ABM) all have them and also helplines to call. search on google for the no's.
It's probably worth going to a local support group if there is one in your area.

Hope you get some info on this

Hi. my dd used to do green poos after i had eaten certain fruits (her birthday is June so lots of yummy fresh fruit around) I found i had to avoid banans, strawberries and stoned fruit or she got lots of tummy pain and green nappies. Took me a while to see the connection but it certainly got a lot better when i stopped. Hope this helps.

Check with your midwife re the green nappies. DD2's nappies turned from gold to green and I was told she was not getting enough of the hind milk, only the fore milk. They kept telling me I wasn't keeping her on long enough, but each feed was taking ages.

(I've re read your post and I see you have already worked that one out!)

No other advice to give except it is really hard for the first month or so - make sure you get loads and loads of rest. Before sitting down to feed, get sorted with a big drink, a sandwich, some malt loaf, a good film on the television and just stick in there for the long haul.

If you get past the first month or so, both you and babe will have cracked it together and you'll wonder why it was so hard at first. Wishing both of you all the best.

Thank you for your replies. After a hard night which included lots of cluster feeds, stopping starting (frustrating) so I've not slept much and my poor nipples are getting sore again. I get so close in the night to throwing in the towel, so close.

Anyway, it's the day now and the feed we've just had wasn't so bad pain wise but it again didn't take too long before he took himself off and it was impossible to get him interested again. I will speak to the HV tomorrow when he's weighed about the poo but mumtoed, you are right I eat a lot of bananas as we always have them in and I love them! I will stop now. I'll also try and cut down on the dairy as a google search revealed this might also be the problem. But I am worried about the fore v hind milk thing, anyway, I suppose we'll see how he's doing at the weigh in.

God, he's calling for me now again. I hate this.

Aw, you poor thing - it can be really hard early on but try to stick at it - it will settle down. I'm not an expert but the fore/hind milk thing is really confusing and doesn't always work like you think it will - do a search for tiktok on the subject on MN.

There's also been a great bf blog linked to on here in the past week or so - look for the thread called 'what do you REALLY want to know about breastfeeding' (sorry can't do links )

Thanks Christie, I'll have a look at that blog.

I've had a great night actually, all that snacking led to him sleeping 11 - 2.30 we fed for an hour and settling was hard but we got there about 5ish and I then was woken at 7.30 to feed - so not altogether too bad really.

HV came to visit and baby is now at 9 lb 13.5 oz which is bang on the 50th centile so she's really pleased with him. I asked about the constant feeding and she mentioned the weather and him being hungry, so going to the breast getting his thirst quenched and then leaving the breast and wanting to settle by me, also babies just are fractious in the heat and that's the way with them sometimes.

Also, thank you to mumtoed, I've left off the bananas and the dairy (as mentioned in a google search) and the poos are now back to normal. We've had an explosive episode in my friend's house, baby disgraced himself!! But at least it was yellow!

So thanks again for your replies. I'm looking forward to getting the first 6 weeks out of the way, and at the same time dreading it as I know they are precious weeks and we'll never get them back.

Right, off to express for SCBU babies. Thanks again for your replies, as always much appreciated. We'll get there in the end, we all will x

cfc - hope things continue to go well.

No need to worry about hindmilk and foremilk - it's an absolute myth that babies need to 'drill down' to the hindmilk and that it takes X minutes to do so, and another myth that the first breast must be 'drained'. I know certain books have this rubbish in them, but it ain't true

Foremilk/hindmilk intake does not need to be 'engineered'. The baby sorts it out. The fat in the milk is related to the amount of milk in the breast - full breasts = less fat; emptier breasts = more fat. It doesn't matter a jot, and a baby who is gaining weight and thriving can have poos of all colours and it doesn't matter. It is not the squits, it is not a sign of 'too much foremilk' and it's not a sign anyone needs to do anything about diet - unless they want to

The blog mentioned is good, as is www.howbreastfeedingworks.com

Frequent feeding is normal, and may be a sign of thirst or just a sign the baby likes being close to his mum

Thanks tt, I was hoping to see you here! I'll simply continue with what I'm doing as it appears to be working so far....

thanks all x

wow, what a helpful thread - cfc i'm going through exactly the same thing - mine is 4 wks albeit premature and all i seem to do is feed all night and now all day. I have to confess i'm now at the tearful stage and seem to cry even when he's not crying. Not had any sleep for the last 4 nights and he wont settle during the day. all he seems to do is feed all the time and he's got very bad wind and colic so the screams are tearjerking. we've tried a colic remedy and i've cut out dairy and salad stuff (HV advised as difficult to break down). All seemed to work at first but now it seems to be getting worse. All he seems to want is to be held, he wont go into his basket at night any more and has been sleeping on me Kangaroo style for the last 4 nights - hubby had to take over last night as i really had reached my peak if anyone can add any advice for a prem baby whose also a bit sniffly it would be much appreciated. He's 4 wks, fully BF but seems to have gone backwards as he now wont latch on, keeps snatching his head away before he gets so fractious i have to hold him really tight to get him to stay on. He is gaining 1oz per day on average but i'm so tired and really struggling to keep it together Help....

Mummychub - sorry to hear that you're having problems. My ds (although not prem) had really bad colic from quite early on - on a bad night I'd go to bed at about 9pm and leave him with dh - who would wake me at 1ish to take over - he could go on until 4/5am, constant screaming.

The thing that cured the colic for us was going to see a cranial osteopath - three treatments then it magically dissappeared immediately, no tailing off - just gone.

We also had colief which helped - its a real faff if you are bf, but we stuck with it as it did help with the colic.

I continued to bf until ds was 22 mo....

Mummychubb, my ds was like this, kept pulling away from the breast - I couldn't get him to latch on, and screaming because he was so hungry at the same time. I found I was stroking his head subconsciously when I was feeding him (it was so lovely and soft and downy :D) which freaked him out. I felt so stupid when I realised I was making him panic, and stopped touching his head while he was feedng and he settled down a treat.

Thanks for the words of wisdom its just nice to know that its normal and there's nothing wrong with me or ds or that i'm not failing miserably!

I'm trying infacol and the muslin in the cot + warm sheets to go into so we'll see if there are any changes tonight - i also think that i've been trying to advance quicker than my grade on the BF front but will start another thread on that cos its BF technique specific!

:-)

We found that taking the moses basket matress out and lying on top of it myself in bed while I fed daughter for a while helped to warm it up and make it smell of me!

Hi there, glad to see tt here with words of wisdom!
One other thing, both of mine went through franctic pulling head of /freaking out stages at one point or another which was down to very fast letdown, basically, they were getting milk too fast in the back of the throat and it was freaking them out(understandably). If they pull off and your milk is still coming out fast then try letting the first bit go inot a muslin or change feeding position to stop it hitting the back of the throat!

It does get better, and so quickly too!