My baby screams whilst trying to feed

[peaspudding]

I am at my wits end! A couple of weeks ago my 7 wk daughter started to scream blue murder when I went to breastfeed her. Initially I thought that it may be due to haven introduced a bottle feed of expressed milk at night but now I am not sure. A midwife has said to my daughter is just "mucking about" yet my health visitor does not agree. Personally I am very confused and it is getting harder and harder with every feed. I feel like giving up and putting her onto formula yet that makes me feel like a failure. Any ideas why she, when just being put into position to feed starts to scream and as I offer her the breast, her crying increases into a high pitched scream, with tears and she goes deep red in the face. I have to cover my breast and hug and sooth her and eventually give up. I am getting very worried. Help!

Is she comfortable in herself when you are trying to feed her? Is she bringing her knees up - fighting some kind of pain? this would indicate wind/colic

What about her nappies - is she having plenty of wet/dirty nappies? - if she is producing plenty of these she's obviously getting enough food so don't worry...

Her crying might not be related to the breast feeding, it might be related to her positioning - have you tried to vary the position you hold her in to feed? My DS loves to be fed next to me lying down - have you tried this?

Hi, thanks for the reply. We usually have good dirty / wet nappies although 2 days ago we did not have one single poo!! Today however looks like we are going back to normal. I have tried to lay down in bed with her unfortunatley she still screamed her head off. It is not at every feed that she is doing this. Last night her 1 and 4 o'clock feeds were short and peaceful however her day feeds today were a battle. I am beginning to dread feeding time as she seems to get soooo distressed . I am going to the local breast feeding support group again this Friday and will try to see if the midwife can help in anyway but if anybody else has been through this or knows what is going on I would love to hear.

When my ds2 was a baby he was a bit like that he would start to feed and then go rigid and throw has head back screaming. After a lot of trying different positions teets etc he was refered to a peadiatrician who diagnosed gastric reflux and started him on Ranitidine. Within a few days he was like a different baby much more settled. Is she a bit sick after feeding?

If I change her nappy shortly after feeding and lift her legs up, she often will "dribble" milk out of the corner of her mouth and any "sick" will be at nappy change time apart from that, she has only been proper sick on a couple of occassions, maily when burping her in bed and it went down my back . We have the peadatritians on Wed 3rd but I don't think I can wait that long and may make an appointment sooner either that or I will have a breakdown!!!
Not sure what to do in the meantime. When I express and give her the bottle, she puts it down her no problem at all, quite happy..I am getting jealous of that bottle....I really hope that this sorts itself out.

Thank you for all the help, it is making me feel better that I am not the only one.

Reflux?

Slow let down?

Maybe reflux although I give her Windypops for wind...need to look into this further I think. Not sure if my let down is slow but I don't think so as when she does feed well, I can see milk around the edge of her lips and I can hear the constant slurp slurp noise...am I making any sense? I really miss those quiet gentle feeds we had instead of this "bobbing for apples" thing she does before screaming her wee head off....will keep you all posted!!

I had a similar experience and it seemed to be down to a fast letdown reflex, so that might be worth checking. When she comes off is her face covered in milk? If so this might be it - it just comes out too fast and is a bit overwhelming. I found leaning back to feed helped, as it didn't come out so fast then. You can also try hand expressing a bit before you start feeding. I hope it gets better. Or it might be reflux like the others said. I've had various ups and downs with BF but it always gets better and I'm sure it will for you too. It's worth persevering and now my DD is 6 months it's lovely feeding her because she actually gets visibly excited when she sees me getting ready. Good luck.

Sorry have just reread your message and seen what you said about letdown - if you can see milk as you say then maybe it is a bit fast.

Hi all, well went to bf support group today and had a good long chat with my midwife and we are going to go back to basics. Basically, lot's of skin to skin contact, bathing together and forgetting any routine we have so far got into. This may or may not work but I am willing to give it a try. She is still not popping every day but I have been told that this is normal. I have also been told to limit the use of the dummy and only use it when she really needs soothing as she may be getting confused. Well, here goes.........cross your fingers for me. Thanks for all of your advice

My 13 wk DS does a bit of this. For us it seems either to be related to too fast let-down (he always feeds better when lying down or sleepy), wind (I pump his legs to help with this) or the other thing I have noticed recently is that I have maybe been trying to feed him and he is just not hungry but is instead tired and I have been misreading the cues.

He is more efficient at feeding now so I don't think he needs to feed as often as he used to do.