Really need help with nursing (or lack of!) 5 month old

[ParisJeTadore]

I am at a point of desperation and could really use some support and help.

My five month old was great at breastfeeding for the first three months. Never had any issues and gained lots of weight which put him at the 95th percentile for weight and off the chart for height.

At four months I noticed approx. twice a day he would fuss and pull off when eating after a 2-3 minutes. It was a little frusterating but I continuted to offer and would at some point manage to get him to eat.

Fast forward to 5 months. He now has started fussing way more frequently when I feed him. To a point that often he will eat for a minute then pull off OR not even feed. I know it's not my milk because I have expressed and given it to him with a dropper which he takes freely. It felt like he was on a nursing strike last week for 4-5 days, then for the following several days ate great. Now we are back to not eating well but it's getting even worse! His doctor said he has dropped to the 50 percentile and wants to see him in a month to make sure he doesn't continue to drop which is creating a lot of stress for this mama!

The last two afternoons he has gone 5-6 hours without nursing at all and it's really starting to worry me. He seems perfectly happy, energetic, has good wet diapers (other than that 6 hour stretch). I know he's teething but would it make him this fussy and not want to nurse for this long?? I've never dealt with this before. R

 

[babe2ooo]

Hmm that's a hard one. I mean if he was hungry he would be crying for food, like u say if he's happy then he can't be hungry. Can u try offering him boob more and see if he takes it or try expressing and giving it to him that way. Sorry I'm not much help

 

[noon_child]

Yes teething could be the cause! However the "four month fussies" is also well documented.

Feeling overwhelmed by stimuli could be the cause, or getting over confident with latching (and getting a poor latch that lead to slow milk) also features in some theories.

I also wonder, if he's been upset about his teeth, or not wanting to feed, or whatever, what position do you comfort him in? Some babies go on a nursing strike after associating a nursing position with crying and being distressed, so it is advised to comfort a breastfed child in a different 'hold' to how you would bf. e.g tiger cub or over the shoulder. As he's already perhaps got a bad associating, you could try new feeding positions, laid back, side lying, rugby ball, whatever you don't normally do and whatever is different to what you'd do if you were trying to calm him!

 

[Lilaala]

Just pitching in that my girl was in the 97th percentile by her 2 month appt and has dropped to 58th now at her 4 month appt and my GP, AND the nurse who did her shots are saying it's normal. She doubled her birth weight by the 3 month mark, it's not reasonable to expect that rate of growth to continue, I would just take it your doctor is being cautious but not stress over it hun. Not possible not to stress, I know, but just offering my similar situation for comparison.

 

[ParisJeTadore]

Thank you so much for your input ladies!

He's still harder to feed but at least is eating. Occasionally it appears to be caused by distraction, other times he fusses and wants nothing to do with nursing. I just keep trying and eventually, usually when he's tired, he will nurse.

I've tried holding him in different positions but it doesn't seem to help much. I agree that he may have developed a bad association to nursing since it often appears that way.

Also, thank you for mentioning that your daughter didn't stay high on the chart Lilaala. An LC told me it was totally unreasonable to expect a baby to stay that high on the chart and normal for a five month old bf baby to drop to their original percentile at birth. Sometimes it's hard to know what advise to follow. I feel like some paediatricians are really old school. Especially when his solution to my sons drop on the chart was to feed him rice cereal