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8 week old refusing breast

2 replies

weedie · 12/05/2020 11:45

Hi,

My 8 week old has recently started to get very fussy on the breast. She has been solely breastfed since birth (bar the occasional bottle of EBM) and we have only started having issues in the last 10 days or so. She latches on well, but only feeds for about a minute before pulling off the breast crying (while my milk squirts all over everything). I spend a couple of minutes burping her and then try to put her back on the breast, but she fusses like anything, feeds for another minute max and so I usually end up burping her again. This process is repeated for up to an hour by which time she's fed for a total of about 10 minutes from one breast. When I put her to the other breast, she hates it and refuses outright to put her face anywhere near my nipple. She isn't falling asleep, she's just very irritated.

I suspect I have forceful let down as at the start of a feed she is gulping the stuff down like mad and I can often hear air going down as she struggles to cope with the volume of milk. Do you think she is associating breastfeeding with the uncomfortable sensation of too much milk or gas building up in her tummy? I've thought about expressing before feeding but I really want to make sure she gets as much milk as possible from the breast during a feed. At the moment I feel like this isn't happening - she feeds for 15 minutes as most during one feed.

Any tips from anyone who's experienced this?

Many thanks!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Sandsnake · 12/05/2020 11:51

Yes, sounds like an overactive letdown. It might be a good idea to express off some of the milk at the start of each feed so that it isn’t so forceful for her. Good luck!

MySonIsAlsoNamedBort · 12/05/2020 12:12

My mum had this problem with my brother, she would lie on her back and lay him on her that way to feed and it sorted it.
Not the most practical if you are out and about , but doable at home.

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