My baby is addicted to the boob :( Helppppp

[warzonemummy]

My PFB is 3 months old today. Since she was 6 weeks old I left her with a wonderful nanny and went back to work. I live right next door to my house so I see the baby every couple of hours to breastfeed. She also gets lots of cuddles in the morning and at night as I work from around 930am to around 5pm. Until last week she napped for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon, she slept from around 7pm to 7am with two feed/change breaks.

I was off work for 6 days and she was with me (I gave nanny time off as I wanted the baby all to myself) and we spent a lot of time cuddling. Now she is totally refusing to have her afternoon and morning naps, wants to be constantly stuck to my breast, she wants to boob in her mouth despite not actually feeding, she wants to sleep in my arms and screams when put down or when she is being held by anyone other than me.

Seeing her upset makes my heart break :(

What can I do to help her get back to her happy self able to sleep and nap independently and not attached to the boob all the time.

Thanks!

Hello to you! I remember you from the Aug thread, although I haven't frequented the post-natal one.

My precious DC2 is 9 weeks old and also goes a bit boob crazy every few days then calms down. Totally normal!

Your baby isn't doing anything unusual, and she's still very young. The wanting to have your boob in her mouth constantly is for comfort, as well as for food.

My mode of living at this stage is to just give DC what she needs - lots of hugs, lots of milk, lots of YOU. You've had a baby and need to be flexible sometimes.

With DS I used to pat myself on the back everytime he did X, Y or Z that I wanted him to do.... then he'd change and shift the goalposts. Not out of badness, but just through his way of development. Same with my DD, and also same with yours.

When are you back to work? Do you give her a dummy for soothing her when you aren't around?

She'll fall back into her pattern of napping soon enough, but if she's having a growth spurt, it might last a week or so.

You'll be fine! She'll be fine!

Doh, forgot to also advise you check out the MN Breast and Bottle Feeding section, often there are lots of mums going through similar things.

warzone do you think it could be the 3 month growth spurt? Both of mine were similar to this for a day or two at around 3 months and it may have little to do with you spending more time with her recently.

What does your nanny suggest about the naps and what has she tried?

Can't do links at the moment but try googling kellymom growth spurt and kellymom separation anxiety. Googling askdrsears 31 ways to get your baby to sleep and askdrsears refuses nap might be useful too [hsmile]

I agree with Julie - this is classic growth spurt behaviour and there is one at 12 weeks. There is another at 16 weeks, just so that you know, and that one is worse than any of the others. Feeding as much as you can to boost milk production is the way to go.

And bloody well done you for combining that sort of work schedule with BF - you're amazing.

Lovely post pointy[hsmile].

OP, have you tried feeding in a sling?