LO loses it while nursing (working moms)

kaylerjean

Hey mamas. My LO turned 15 weeks yesterday and is EBF. I've been back at work for about 4 or 5 weeks now and the first few weeks LO did great going back and forth from breast to bottle. But now, starting maybe 3 weeks after I returned, she gets super frustrated while nursing. She will suckle for a second, then pull of and cry, then suckle and scream, etc. For pretty much the whole nursing session. A few times I have gotten her to calm down and suck long enough to stimulate a letdown and she seems fine after that until we switch sides and it starts all over again. 

It seems to me like she is frustrated that milk isn't flowing instantly like it does with a bottle. When my breasts are super full in the mornings she has no problem because it starts flowing right away. But once it's later in the afternoon/evening she just loses it when I try to feed her.

I've tried several positions, to no avail. I've tried calming her with a binky and then trying again which hasn't worked. I refuse to give her a bottle while I am home, I feel like giving in will just make the problem worse. We are using the slowest flow nipple on the bottles so it's not like it comes out super fast with the bottle.

I'm just looking for advice/support.  Its gotten really stressful during feeding times which sucks because it's all I look forward to while at work. I know she is in the middle of a Wonder Week leap and I'm hoping that is it and it will be a phase. My goal was to breast feed for at least one year and I'm really, really hoping this doesn't hurt our BF relationship. 

Lolo427

That's super frustrating! (N15 lurker but baby was born on 10/29 so I creep around here quite a bit and am just now chirping in). We struggled with this quite a bit and now I've gone exclusively to pumping as between wanting instant gratification and GERD BF was causing both of us to become quite upset. What did work initially before GERD was lots of skin to skin and also using a pump a minute or two before attempting to latch DD as letdown would be stimulated first by the pump. Maybe try that? Best of luck!

CDA71089

Is your daycare provider pace feeding the bottles?  If not that should really help!

tracij12

Sorry you're dealing with this. I'm going in my 3rd week back at work and we've had a few sessions like you're describing. Really hoping it doesn't become the norm.

Agree with PP that it may help to pump or do some manual expression for a few mins before starting to feed. 

cbolton19

I've been back at work 3 weeks now and we've definitely had that. It seems to happen when she is overly tired or stimulated. When it happens, I just follow her cues and stay really calm, eventually she kind of wears herself out and will nurse fine. It takes some patience though. She does it often in the evenings. She did it before I went back to work too, just not quite as often. How are your feedings going on weekends/your days off? Maybe you could nurse in a dimly lit room with some white noise? Your LO may just need a little extra help relaxing after being away all day. Picking my daughter up and nursing is what I look forward to all day. Hopefully your little one will continue to adjust and that it will get easier. Hang in there, momma. 

LaurenBee24

The trick isn't to change your output with the pump because that's not sustainable. Make sure that your lo is being pace feed when you're not there. Also, I highly recommend breast flow bottles as they require a similar motion and amount of work to the breast. 

alinic916

We are having the same problems.  DH and MIL are the ones watching her while I'm at work and they said they pace feed, but it doesn't matter.  I have noticed that she's started to want to go longer between feedings.  If she refused to breastfeed, I wait 15 min or so and try again.  If it gets closer to 3 hours and she still won't breastfeed or if she won't stop crying I give her a bottle.  I'm not going to fight with her and make her have a bad breastfeeding relationship.  For me, the most important thing is that she's fed.  If breastfeeding ends early because of it, I'm ok with that.  Some others may not be and opt to pump in place of these missed feedings.  In my eyes, we've made it to 4 months and that's pretty good!  Like you, DD does well in the mornings and the last feeding before bed but most others are a struggle for us.  One thing that has helped occassionally was giving her a pacifier to suck on and switch right over to breast.  This helped her be more calm about it.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  You're definitely not alone on this one.

mrstps

My LO doesn't get any bottles and this happens to us too occasionally, but never for the MOTN or early morning feeds, and my supply is still a tad over-supply so I never attribute it to a let down issue.... 

What works for us is switching sides frequently during the feed, cause she will get a good few minutes in before she unlatches/cries, and then repeat until she seems to have had enough.

carmv01

My LO is going through the EXACT same thing We've only ever used slow-flow nipples so he still has to work for the milk, but obviously he has to work much harder at the breast. It started after I went back to work and he started getting more bottles. I'll confirm if they're doing paced feeding at daycare. He's just so impatient at the breast - he'll suck for a minute and if the let-down doesn't happen right away (or something not at all if he's not sucking enough) then he gets mad and starts pulling away and fussing. He also does this if the flow starts to slow down. If he's calm or sleepy or if there's an instant let-down he'll nurse fine. I'm actually enjoying the dream feeds or MOTN feeds now because he's sleepy and not fighting me. It does seems to help if I pump for a minute before nursing to get the milk flow going, but I hate having to pull the pump out when I'm home with him.

sarapagan

You are definitely NOT alone! Being a nursing and working mom can be so challenging. Violet just started having issues on the breast. I nurse her with no issues at 5am and then again at 630am right before I leave. She then gets two 4oz bottles while I'm gone and I return from work at 330 to nurse her and lately she's been falling apart during this feeding! She flails and cries and no matter what tricks I try, I can't get her to latch on because she's hysterical. Yesterday I gave in an gave her 4oz from the supply I pumped during the day in a bottle. The rest of the feedings during the evening were OKAY, but she still needed some calming down and needed me to get the milk flowing before she would latch on! I'm really hoping I can continue nursing while I'm home without having to pump and put the milk in a bottle, I love nursing her and it's such a special time for us. 

kaylerjean

Thanks ladies for the advice and support. It makes me feel much better knowing I'm not alone in this struggle. I did some research on pace feeding and dad and grandma will be doing that from now on, hopefully it will help. The last couple days have been a little better for nursing. She still fusses some but she calms down quickly and will stay on long enough to trigger my let down. I've been trying really hard to stay calm when she throws a fit because I know me being stressed will just stress her out more. Now, if she is frustrated and I can calm her down with the binky I'll just let her suck on that for a while and we try nursing again in a few minutes, that seems to help. Also, I try and feed her a little before I know she's going to be hungry so she isn't as impatient for the letdown, I think that's made the biggest difference. 

carmv01

I've had 3 great nursing sessions in a row (not including nighttime feedings where he's basically sleeping) since I posted yesterday. I think the biggest difference was moving him to a dark, quiet place (like on the glider in his nursery with shades drawn) with no distractions. This morning, he started freaking out when I began nursing him downstairs on the couch in the daylight, so we moved to his darkened nursery. I hand-expressed some milk and offered him the breast. It was like night and day. He was so calm he nursed for a bit and fell right asleep!

I had similar luck an hour ago visiting him at daycare. He was awake when I got there, so I took him into the nursing room away from all the noise, closed the shade so it was fairly dim, and he nursed so peacefully. Going to keep working on it!