Baby won’t stay on past let down

6 month olds are pretty efficient feeders so could get what they need in 5 mins from one side is what I’ve read

I’ve wondered that! Bc she does seem happy after the feeds. However when I weaned myself off of pumping after the feeds my supply plummeted. And she definitely won’t feed unless my boobs are very full. So as the day goes on her feeds get shorter

If she isn’t staying latched after the let down- maybe pump a little before you feed her / use a hakaa to get the let down and then she will just get post letdown, so maybe she will feed longer!?

well the problem is she won’t stay latched unless the milk is actively flowing. Like if I bring her to my boob and it’s not full she is not interested. Even though after the letdown there is tons of milk. I get a lot when I pump. She won’t work for it if that makes sense. We do pace feed when we use bottles she still just seems to prefer the bottles over boob

Do you have an oversupply? If that’s the case she might be getting enough from you.

My baby has mild ties. I’ve observed that if I exclusively nurse him without pumping, my supply drops.
So I pump once in the morning and once in the night.
At 6 months, your supply is pretty regulated. If you can afford a whole day, you can try exclusively nursing her, and pump twice 12hrs apart after feeding her.
Since she’s used to having top ups with bottle, she might be extra fussy when she doesn’t get that top up. But you might have to hold strong and offer her breast each time. And at night before her bed time, you can top up with the bottle so she gets full and will have a full night’s sleep. But during the day, breast only.
It will be hard, if you’ve got a couple of days you can hopefully successfully manage to get back to nursing exclusively..

I don’t have an over supply. I’ve actually had to work hard to keep my supply up. It’s great now but I still only ever pump exactly enough for the next bottle, with nothing leftover at the end of the day. So I am nervous to cut out pumps but this is encouraging I may give it a try! So you think cold turkey then and let her struggle for a couple days?

if your baby is following her growth curve and isn’t underweight, you could definitely try!
If you’re super nervous there are two things you can try:
1.Add in an additional night time pump so you can save a bit extra milk for mayday. 2am-5am is the best to do this additional pump session, as your prolactin levels are the highest at this time. So having a tiny freezer sash might ease your mind!
2. You can ease it in; I mean; you can pump 4 times on day1. Thrice on day2, and get it down to 2 on day3. Make sure you always offer breast first. (This might take longer to achieve your goal so totally up to you).

Just curious, is her latch good?
Moments before you know she’s going to unlatch, try to offer her more milk by breast compressions. Having that extra surge of milk might encourage her to keep suckling.
You can also try to switch her up as soon as she unlatches to your other breast, that way she’ll have the chance to feed on another letdown and do this again n again..

okay this is great advice thank you.

So her latch is good I think! It needed a lot of the work in the beginning. She had tongue ties, so we did cranial sacral therapy and chiropractic work. Which is why she got used to the bottle we needed to get her weight up during all that.

I do do breast compressions most the time while she’s feeding, pretty much the entirety of the feed, that’s the only way to keep her interested. My other issue is she definitely prefers one breast too. It can be hard to get her to nurse on my slacker side.

About breast compressions, I was just like you and I’d do it for the entire feed and my baby would just feed from the let down and unlatch.
After bringing this up to my lactation consultant, she told me not to do it during the whole feed. It will make the baby get used to feeding without having to put much effort. So in the long run, it won’t be teaching your baby to suckle better or suckle longer.
It felt daunting when she told me that, but it actually worked! My baby had to work harder but he soon caught up. This happened when he was just 6weeks old.
Since Your baby is 6 months old and is used to having milk this way, it might take her longer to learn, but preserving will definitely help.
Only offer breast compressions to encourage them to continue suckling.

And when the moment comes, when she had a SECOND letdown from the same breast, you can add breast compressions as a treat. When it’s done this way, she’ll soon learn she’ll get more from the second let down so she’ll latch on!

did cranial sacral therapy and chiropractic work help? Asking cause my baby has mild posterior tongue and lip tie. And we choose not to correct it since it’s mild. His latch isn’t the greatest but he is very keen to nurse and hates bottles, so I’m left with no other option 😅
Although I’m quite nervous about his latch when he’ll eventually get his teeth. He already bites me pretty often so it’s quite scary to think about the future. So I want to have the option of CST or chiropractic body work at my disposal if things do go bad.

yes it helped so much!! She had a shallow very painful latch before. Keeping up on the exercise they give you is tough but it was so so worth it and it made her more comfortable

this makes so much sense thank you!!

My baby does this! She’s actually been fussy on the boob since 2.5 months and is now nearly 7 months… I got to the point where I was giving 3 bottles a day so I knew at some point she was getting plenty, but I couldn’t deal with the pumping, bottles and still trying to BF trio. At 6 months she got her TT snipped as my last bit of hope, but it still didn’t help her fussiness. I decided to just EBF and if my supply diminishes I’ll give formula as it’s been months of stress. I’ve given the occasional bottle since (as she’s now fussing with bottles too and only taking about 50-70mL so I can’t win…) and these replacement feeds I’ve pumped, my supply is actually the same as when I was pumping 4 times a day plus breastfeeds. Do you notice when you pump that majority of your milk is removed within the first 5 minutes? As that’s what happens to me so maybe bub gets more in those 5 mins than it seems.