Baby refuses to breastfeed

My LO has started refusing my breast. Not sure why but he cries when he has the breast in his mouth, this during the day, not at night. He takes it ok at night and takes the one expressed bottle before bed.

Is this a phase? It breaks my heart that he refuses my breast and scares me as it’s hot and I don’t want him to get dehydrated and loose weight especially as the HV thinks his underweight.

Any help on how to get him back to taking my breast would be helpful.

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Hey, I’ve been through the same for the past month. I noticed he was struggling on the breast, sweaty and so stressed, both of us. And I also felt broken because he was kinda refusing it. Then I decided to introduce some formula, and after a week now, I’m sure it was because of not enough milk production from the breast. The first flow is super quick and satisfy him but when he needs to put some more effort in it he just gets so nervous! I still breastfeed him every now and then during the day, sometimes he’s happy with it, others still struggles. Adding formula was what needed to be done and we’re both happy now and much less stressed out. It’s not easy to accept the transition to formula, but what matters is what makes us both feeling comfortable 💖

Have you reached out to La Leche League? They’ve given me fab breastfeeding advice and I’ve been added to the local WhatsApp where parents ask breastfeeding q’s and share advice (feeding strikes seem to be a common phase as it comes up quite a lot)

I’ve also had baby struggling to feed during the day recently, I think I’ve worked out it’s when he has wind (top or bottom) and it gets worse if I have really spicy food for a couple of days afterwards

I did try formula before all this happened and his tummy was very bloated and seemed very uncomfortable so decided not to go down that route for now. However will explore it again if he continues.

ohh, he seems to be passing wind a lot when breastfeeding, not sure if his latching has changed and his taking in more wind. I’ve tried to keep away from spicy food as was worried this was the cause.

Is la leche league a WhatsApp group? How do I reach out to them?

If he’s sucking his thumb / hands that might make him take in more air too

If you google la leche league plus your area it should tell you their contact details, there will probably be different WhatsApp groups per county x

thanks gives me hope as I really want to continue breastfeeding as long as I can. I do pump as and when I can but at least once a day.

He is dribbling a lot and has his hands in his mouth a lot of the time. That could explain the gas

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circumcision

are we circumcising our boys? or leaving that to dad?

Routines?

When did you start to introduce your baby’s routine? Do they just have a night routine or full day routine? Wondering when I should start this e.g naps at the same time everyday.

Any routines you have that work for you, please let me know them with timestamps. my baby is 6 weeks and just wondering when we should start them?

I think Motherhood has made me more bitter than I realized…

This is such a ramble but I don’t know where else to put it all.

I’m four months in and I don’t really have hobbies right now. I don’t do anything for myself except maybe doomscrolling or listening to a podcast while I breastfeed my baby. I used to craft and have game nights with friends. Activities that usually are at least 2 hour stretches. Now if I have an hour free my mind immediately goes to baby, or doing something in the house for baby.

And I thought I didn’t mind. Like I knew postpartum could be very mentally consuming. But I think it’s altering how I view people around me and it’s prodding at my relationship with my husband.

He spends most of his time making food for us, looking after our dogs, playing with the baby, ect. But he still has time for his hobby. Spends maybe an hour a night on it. Even adapted to using a bot for shopping for his hobby after a certain incident where we had to have a heart to heart after he left me home alone with the baby for hours during a busy workday (I work from home) to shop for his hobby.

And yet there’s like this little green eyed monster in me that rages every time I know he’s running off to start up the bot. Even though I’m the reason he does it this way.

We took a family trip last weekend to see his best friend and their kids and let them meet the baby. He brought the laptop. He’s always brought a laptop on trips and it’s never been a problem to me before. But one night we both woke up while the baby was still asleep, and he wandered out of the room. I tried to fall back asleep but couldn’t. So I went to the kitchen to try having something warm to drink to settle me. And he was there at the table running the bot from his laptop. I flipped out at him. But there really wasn’t reason to. It’s not like I needed help with the baby and he was ignoring me. He wasn’t avoiding our friends. He was just awake and unable to sleep and found something to do with his time. Yet my snap reaction was “why the hell would you do this on a family trip?”

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the less complete sleep from baby’s middle of the night feed? My brain being just consumed by baby? Maybe I’m not as over that shopping incident as I thought? But I’m just so annoyed at his hobby right now. The green eyed monster thinks “you could be using that time differently” but realistically to do what exactly??? Stare at our baby in the dark???

I spent probably an hour apologizing to him after I snapped. And he’s of course hurt and frustrated because I said some very mean things in the moment.

I don’t want to be this jealous, angry person. But I also don’t know how to find time for myself in this right now outside of basic hygiene. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to be myself, even if just for an hour.

Maybe I need a therapist.

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Hey,

Baby is getting slightly too heavy for his travel system now.

I was just wondering want strollers people recommended. Thank you

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