Baby not bothered sucking??

[Lu28]

I've been having a difficult few days with feeding Aisling. Especially in the evening, she'll cry for a feed and when I put her on, she latches on well and promptly falls asleep without actually feeding. If I take her off she's crying again within 5 minutes but again won't feed if I put her on. She's definitely crying to be fed (I've figured out that cry!) and I've ended up expressing in the evenings and giving her bottles of expessed milk which she guzzles down straight away. Has anyone else come across this kind of thing?

Thanks!

 

[mommyof3co]

I would be careful with the bottles, that might be it, because it's much easier to eat from a bottle so she may not want to work to nurse. Something that helped the boys was changing their diapers right before feeding, got them woke up so they didn't fall asleep so fast.

 

[thelilbump]

i'd say perhaps confusion aswell from the bottle. It's easier to get fluid out of a bottle but your baby has to work harder to get it out of the breast. as for a soluiton though, i'm unsire myself i'm afraid but i'm sure the lovely merv's mum or hevz or someone will be along soon

 

[Lu28]

I've literally done the bottle in the evening for the first time 2 nights ago out of desperation! She's had the nightime bottle for weeks and gets on fine with both, she feeds really well until about 6pm and then gets tired so I don't think it's a nipple confusion problem - during the day she does a very good wild animal impression as she furiously latches on and starts sucking away!!

Another probably stupid question at this stage - how do you know when your breasts are empty? Mine always seem to have even a small bit of milk coming out when I squeeze, even after I've expressed after Aisling has come off. I would obviously prefer for her to empty each breast but wonder if the problem above might in part be due to her sucking for too long on a basically empty boob...

 

[Mervs Mum]

i would echo what the girls ^^^ have said about being careful not to exacerbate the situation with the bottle. Your boobs never fully 'empty' which is one of the beauties of them! They will always have milk there. It's not easy to tell especially as time goes by as you will stop noticing them 'fill' and 'empty' the same. Just go by how long she's been on there and when she comes off.