Help! Baby won't feed during the day...

[@llli*Biddy]

Hi - I was hoping someone here might be able to help me...

My baby is 4 months old and EBF. For the past week or two he has become very difficult to feed during the day - sometimes he is distracted and looks around, other times he's just fussy and gets very upset when I try to make him feed. He has about one good feed a day, and the rest are little snacks along the way. He is otherwise pretty much content and happy. Just not interested in feeding.

As a result he is up all night feeding and i dont get more than 1hr 30mins sleep at a time. And as he doesn't really sleep much in the day, I am becoming totally exhausted. I have been trying to feed him in darkened room etc, but it doesn't often work. I am not currently co-sleeping with him and would prefer not to go down this route if possible.

Does anyone have any advice or experience of such a situation?? Would love to hear that it's just a phase!! I am at my wits end.

Thank you x

[@llli*mommal]

Welcome to the forum, mama! What you describe sounds like a real pain. This link has some tips for reverse cycling: http://www.kellymom.com/bf/normal/reverse-cycling.html.

It sounds like a big part of the issue is that you have a very distracted baby. Taking him into a dark, quiet room when it's time to nurse might help.

The other thing this could be is teething or an ear infection- those often make babies unwilling to feed, and then very restless at night...

[@llli*Biddy]

Thanks for posting! Yes, I wondered about the teething thing as he's also v dribbly, but then he feeds well at night so I wasn't sure...

I also wondered whether the problem could be slow let-down?? At night he's sleepy so stays attached to feed, but in the day I wonder whether after the first let-down of milk he gets annoyed and won't stay on the breast to stimulate for subsequent let-downs. Although sometimes the milk's there - as he swallows when he's on - but he just keeps pulling off the nipple and looking around.

I am trying darkened room but it doesn't seem to make much difference. Have now got into crazy thing of trying to keep him awake all day in the hope that he'll feed better when he's tired and grumpy! Oh dear....

[@llli*kjohanna]

Ah, my DD went through a phase of that kind of nursing...I even asked on the boards here, because it seemed like she couldn't possibly be consuming much, with as distracted as she was. She was nursing a heck of a lot more at night as well. It was a phase, however, that eventually passed after a couple months. The darkened room didn't work at first, but then it did...babies are funny like that sometimes. Hang in there, I'm sure your LO won't be like this for the rest of your breastfeeding journey! If the exhaustion is getting to you and you don't want to cosleep, could maybe either moving your sleeping space, or the baby's closer together be a possibility (ie, move LO's crib into your room, or set up a mattress in LO's room), so that you don't have to get up as much...that might help in the exhaustion dept.