8 week old

[SpringCrane]

I feel like I'm still not getting into a nursing rhythm with my 8 week old. He's EBF. I have a very forceful letdown, and I learned with my first that I have to remove him from the breast until the milk stops shooting out of my breast, and then have him re-latch. However, he then only nurses a short while then pulls off. He's basically just catching the end of the letdown and then refusing to nurse anymore. So, I then switch sides (only ever fed first kid on one side at a time), and he repeats. He very rarely nurses to sleep because he seems to get super frustrated and pulls away kicking. He's sleeping great at night. Usually eats at 8 pm, 2 am, and 6 am. He will on occasion stay on the breast and nurse for a long time and seem happy and content, but my older son did that every feed, not once a day or every other day. And, I've tried letting him nurse through the letdown, but he chokes every time.

He's gaining weight fine, I believe. He hasn't been weighed at the doctor's since 2 weeks, but holding him on my scale and using an online growth chart calculator, he seems to be on his curve.

He nurses a lot during the day. I don't keep track of how often, unfortunately. I will tomorrow. But he'll frequently start rooting and showing hunger signs very soon after eating on both sides, but will fight the breast or pull off the nipple after only a short time again.

I'm just really not finding this a pleasant experience. I had mastitis on both breasts when my first son was a week old, but after that we had a lovely time BFing until I was pregnant and he self-weaned at 17 months.

Any advice or encouragement?

 

[noon_child]

I think when you have a forceful letdown it can be hard to realise whether the baby is effective at feeding or not as they rely on the breast doing all the work.

Is it possible to feed him in a semi-reclined position so that he is lying on top of you with the breast underneath him. That way he might not choke so much on the letdown (milk moves more slowly when working against gravity) and might get more of the milk that way. Also this feeding position also encourages deeper latching, so more effective feeding sometimes takes place.

It might just be that because he is used to the letdown he doesn't like working for the milk (in which case breast compressions might help) but I would try to get someone who knows about it to check for tongue tie too.

At 8 weeks I was not in a feeding rhythm either. I was constantly having people come to try to help me work out what was going wrong, why I was in pain, why she wouldn't put weight on faster...fast forward two weeks and suddenly its much less painful and a week after that pain free! Still don't know what was going on, but there can be hope.

 

[penelopejones]

Have you checked him for a lip/tongue tie or a high palate? Maybe he is having trouble getting a deep latch?

 

[jessmke]

My LO went in a nursing strike from 8-10 weeks right around when my breasts softened. She has a bit of a tongue tie and a lip tie so her latch is quite shallow and I think she was having a tough time latching once my breasts softened. She is still a bit of a challenge to nurse and she never comfort nurses. Sometimes I wait until she just drifts off to sleep to nurse her if she is really fighting it, and sometimes she prefers to nurse side lying instead of me holding her. It couldn't hurt to get him checked for ties to see if that is an issue, and maybe try some different nursing positions.

 

[penelopejones]

My son had a lip and tongue tie and had similar trouble with nursing. We just got his fixed with a laser, and his latch has improved.