eek! why wont she feed

[mad4mainecoons]

evening all,

hope someone can shed some light on this as im a bit worried, my DD is 4 weeks and completely breast fed. over the last few days she has had a cold . but it didnt stop her feeding.

but today, aside from her first feed at 6.30 this morning she has not taken a full feed at all, i keep trying and she just keeps taking herself off after seemingly latching on well. this evening she got really worked up and kept "rooting" when i held her but would not go on the breast to feed! it was really distressing as she seemed hungry and eventually she cried so much in my arms that she fell asleep so i have let her sleep and ill try to feed her again when she wakes up.

so whats going on? Hot weather? we have had quite an out and about day so had she got too tired to feed? or because she has not fed much was my milk coming out too forcefully? (i did try expressing some off but it didnt help)

any ideas or experiences gratefully recieved

i don't know but my baby used to do this when he was very tiny too!
first time when he was a few weeks old, i was really worried. next morning he was feeding just like normal

i never did find out what it was all about

Have you taken her temperature?

Hi Mad4

I hope things have resolved themselves, but if not, it may be she has an ear infection. This can happen after a cold and it can make it sore for her to use her jaws properly for breastfeeding.

Have you tried expressing at all?

It could be an overactive letdown - which mean that the milk comes out too fast and this makes things very uncomfortable for the baby, hence the pulling off and refusing to feed even when hungry.

Hopefully someone with more experience than me will turn up but there is some really helpful advice here

Interestingly, it recommends not to express unless nothing else is working, as expressing can increase your milk supply and this makes the problem worse.

hi ladies, thanks for the input. sorry i could not reply last night. blimmin computer problems.

she does seem a little better this morning and we did get some good feeds in the night so hopefully things are resolving. still a little fussy tho. feeding lying down seems much better.

no temperature according to my FH thermometer and we were at the doctors friday and her ears were checked then so hopefully its not an ear infection.

thanks for the link boobmeister that page is really helpful, and it does seem to fit with a lot of what we experience. will keep going and hopefully things will get better.

thanks again