Kate, who has been a dream since about 10 weeks - sleeping like a champ, rarely fussing, great eater - had turned an unfortunate corner.
Her sleep pattern has deteriorated significantly. While previously I could count on a regular 3 or 4 hour nap, now I'm lucky to get 1.5. And she's been waking up more at night, I think in large part to rolling on to her back and then not being able to get back over. Also, she's getting up much earlier than she used to (used to be about 10am, now it's closer to 8am).
And probably the most frustrating part has become feeding time. She literally starts screaming bloody murder as soon as she sees the boppy I use to breastfeed. Then she grunts and groans the whole time I'm feeding her - that's if I'm even able to get her to latch on. I don't know if she's paying me back for being gone last week for an overnight?
Yesterday I was about in tears as she was screaming. It is a very frustrating feeling to know that your baby needs to eat but then have her refuse. She seems to take a bottle ok - with formula, not breastmilk - but I don't know if I'm exacerbating the problem by getting her dependent on a bottle as I'd really like to breastfeed the full year like I did with Emma.
Any advice? I might call the hospital lactation consultant if it continues given how tiny Kate is to start with. Hopefully this is a short-lived phase. Could she be teething already?
She could definitely be teething. Some babes do it a lot sooner than others. I know how it goes though. . . when your baby is already a little peanut, you want to make sure they are eating more. I unfortunately don't have great advice cause I gave up and gave my babe a bottle. :( Hang in there though, and I hope her sleep improves soon.
ReplyDeleteoh boy, i know how you feel. not with breastfeeding but it's REALLY hard to get louise to eat anything at all, SO frustrating. i hope kate goes back to her regular sleeping and eating schedule soon.
ReplyDeleteK started having more issues with breastfeeding after I went to work and we switched her to the bottle. Before that, she was happy enough to try to feed and then get topped up with pumped milk via finger feeding. After that, she was even more frustrated than before by my super-slow letdown and flow. She'd start crying and pulling off/refusing to latch. But would drink fine from the bottle.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it was the overnight that threw her off - got her used to the bottle more? Would you consider pumping and feeding her pumped milk? Maybe you could try feeding her a couple ounces pumped milk and then finishing off the feeding at the breast? Or could the lactation consultant hook you up with a supplemental feeding system (tape a feeding tube to your breast) to have her get better milk flow from the start while latched on. She might get back off the bottle and back onto the breast then. I also found K easier to get on the breast at night when she was kind of sleepy anyhow and there was less stuff around to distract her.
Could she just be getting more alert and intrigued by what's going on around her, and not want to latch on because of that?
Hope something here helps a bit. Please keep us posted!
Oh no - I'm sorry to hear that she's been a little tricky lately.
ReplyDeleteWhen DD had trouble latching on, I expressed and fed her with a bottle. She ended up moving past the phase and breastfeeding again OK after that. But pumping does make for a lot of extra work (I was getting up at 5am before DD woke up to pump, and the midwife didn't think it was very sustainable!)
I hope she moves past this phase.