(Re) Intro and fussy nurser

DahliaFlower

Hi Ladies, this is my 1st post in quite awhile, so I'll re-introduce myself.  I spent a lot of time on this board after having my son in 10/2013; I found so much support and helpful information here.  DS just turned two, and I successfully nursed until he was a year old. I stopped (at the advice of my doctor) at that time as I was pregnant with my daughter, who is now 5.5 months. With my son, I dealt with oversupply, fast let down & three episodes of mastitis. This time, I have avoided oversupply issues but have a strange problem I'm not sure what to do about. My daughter is a very laid back baby in general, but has become a "fussy" (lazy?) nurser. I think there are probably two contributing factors.  First, she takes a pacifier, which my son never did.  Secondly, I am a working mom so she gets pumped milk in bottles during the day. Ever since she was about 4 months, she's been resistant to nursing during the day. She seems too impatient to wait for let-down, pulls off & cries. Sometimes I can "trick her" with her pacifier and switch over to nursing. I thought it was a phase or strike, but it seems to be continuing & I'm getting frustrated. She nurses great overnight, latches right away with no crying. All of the problems occur during the daytime. Any suggestions? Avoiding bottles is not an option.  I am planning to start taking away the pacifier fairly soon, but I don't know if that will help with this issue at this point anyway.  Thoughts??

missemmawoodhouse

Have you looked into paced bottle feeding? The idea is to make LO work for milk from the bottle so it's similar to the breast. Here's an article from KellyMom: https://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/feeding-tools/bottle-feeding/ And a good YouTube video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UH4T70OSzGs

PlainJane8350

Could it be gas?

tracij12

What kind of bottles are being used during the day? I agree with earlier poster that slowing down the daytime feedings to make baby work for it like she does the breast at help.

DahliaFlower

Thanks for the replies, ladies.  LO gets pumped breast milk in Dr. Brown's bottles w/ newborn level one nipples during the day. My childcare provider is extremely experienced w/ care of breastfed babies and I have gone over paced bottle feeding with her.  I don't think there's much I can do to correct her technique at this point.  I would also add, she took care of my son from 9 weeks on and I never had this issue w/ him.  I guess I could try addressing it again with her.  

As for gas, yes, she does burp most feedings and sometimes seems a little gassy, but usually this is later in the feeding.  Her fussiness w/ nursing occurs before feeding even begins.  

I am pretty well convinced that this is an issue of being too impatient to wait for let-down.  Even w/ paced bottle feeding they basically get immediate let down. Hmmph.  

DahliaFlower

@missemmawoodhouse Thanks for the great video.  Although I've said some of these things, I think the video is really helpful in demonstrating techniques and also has some suggestions that are new to me.   

crsanchez87

Maybe try pumping to get the let down going and then putting her on the breast?