question for breastfeeding mums

For the last 4 / 5 weeks or so trying to get my 5 mo DD to latch on properly has become a nightmare. She’ll cry, scratch and grab at me and put her hands into her mouth making it impossible for me, and sometimes it can take up to 5 mins before I’m able to get her latched on. Usually once she is we’re ok and she’ll start to feed, however sometimes she’ll unlatch herself and we have to start the whole process again – is this normal?!

DD was born 12 weeks prem, and for the first 8 weeks while in hospital she was fed through a nasal gastric tube from milk I had expressed. After 8 and a half weeks of constant expressing I had a pretty good supply and was able to start breastfeeding her. She took to it really well and we had no problems at all up until a month or so ago.

I’m starting to wonder now if because she’s been mucking around (I don’t think she’s getting as much as she used to) that maybe my supply could be starting to drop off. She has had a few bottles of expressed milk over the last few months as we’ve quite a bit of it from when I was expressing while she was in hospital, which she will take fine.

I’m just curious if anyone else has experienced this, is this just a phase she’s going through or something a bit more? Its at the point now where we both get so stressed out at the beginning of a feed that I’m seriously considering stopping breastfeeding altogether, but I feel like I’ve made it through the hardest part and don’t really want to stop if Idon’t have to. At least when she has a bottle I can see she’s had a proper, full feed.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Could you have thrush? It could be that she is impatient for let-down so maybe try expressing until you get let-down and then latch her on or breast compressions might work too. Has AF returned yet? I found DS2 got shirty with me in the months coming up to it returning and the first couple of days when she was here could be challenging.

It could be that all the bottles have actually got her preferring the 'ease' of them......because she doesn't have to work to get milk out, it just starts flowing. Have you tried latching her when she is really drowsy/tired............so just before or just after a sleep? I found that when DS2 was acting up that if I carried him more (we have an ERGO) that it seemed to help, I think he got a bit overwhelmed with the world and wanted the closeness. Skin to skin might be something else to try.

I can't 'tell' you to keep on bf, that's a decision only you can make, but as the PP said I personally feel that it is well worth it, even with the challenging behaviour (I dealt with mastitis, thrush, and 3 nursing strikes). It is more likely a phase, we had many of them, some of which drove me bonkers. LOL For example when he was 4 months old and seemed to realise that there was a wider world out there, feeding in public became a new sport cause he was always unlatching himself to see what was going on around him. I took to feeding him in parent rooms for a while if he needed feeding while out so that hopefully flashing of strangers was kept to the bare minimum.

Jake went through something similiar, it was quite frustrating. I think it was a combination of him becoming more aware of his surroundings and being nosey and my supply settling.

Jake was very impatient as I had a super fast let down and when my supply settled the let down slowed down. After a few weeks things went back to normal and my letdown became fast again...

He is still nosey though and often takes little breaks to have a look around

thanks for all the advice, I think she may have gotten a wee bit lazy preferring the bottle maybe. I'm going back to see the lactation consultant today, I really don't want to give up b/feeding if I don't have to, I just wasn't sure if this was something that most babies went through or not.

thanks

mmm yes i was going to say teething maybe with her hands in her mouth. And yes they start to get more and more distracted at about this age so the advice from the girls above is the same as mine. Just keep offering and try not to worry too much about your supply, it's probably about her and not you.

meggls I haven't read through the other posts either but just wanted to say "I've been there" and it's normal How did you get on with the LC??

My DS was 8wks prem and at first took to BF pretty well (if a bit slow) and he also went through a phase of preferring his hands and loving to SCRATCH

We had other issues going on as well and in the end I gave up BF at 5.5m but while I WAS BFing him the LC I saw was a godsend and, along with lots of support from here, she is what kept me going as long as I did.

So yep, totally normal And it does settle down, I think Callum was just discovering his hands at that point and also becoming more distracted by the world around him AND a bit put off by the change in milk flow and things too.

Hope the lactation consultant puts your mind at ease today