help my 9 month old baby refuses to nurse

[sharayahs_mommy]

i am so stressed because my baby girl(9 months old) has been refusing to nurse for the last two weeks.does anyone have exsperience with this?i am not sure what to do i have cried because i am not sure what else to try.i have been offering to nurse before anything else and everytime she sees my breast she starts pulling away and crying : (.i have tried taking all bottles away but i have to end up giving in because she refuses to drink from a cup or sippy and i tried using a dropper but she spits most of it out and i dont want to just waste the breast milk.if anyone knows anything i can do or if anyone has exsperience i would love to hear about it

[Lunaloca]

**Hugs** I know how hard that is and how awful it feels My LO did that when she was sick and couldn't breathe well. I don't have any big advice, but here's what I've tried when she won't nurse, (it's so upsetting )

- Be super relaxed about it (easy to say, hard to do!) and if she refuses, simply say "it's okay, we'll try later!". I think my DD really senses when I'm worked up about it.

- Offer her in all different places, ie. playing with toys, different chair, lying down

- Read her a story while nursing. She might pop on and off, but will stay and nurse for a bit.

- Pumped just a little to get the letdown and then put her on (did this when she was congested, as she couldn't suck/breathe enough to get things going!)

Do you think she might have an ear infection at all? I know that BFing can hurt when they have an ear infection. If it's been 2 weeks, I might go and get a check up to rule out any sickness cause for the strike.

Kellymom has good info on nursing strikes too.... http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/...to-breast.html

Hope you find something that works. It's so stressful!

[MaryJaneLouise]

Nursing strikes are so hard, physically and emotionally. The link above has some good info. I had good luck with trying to nurse in the bath tub, with both of us nakey.

Good luck!

[Ruthla]

I was going to post the kellymom link, but I see that Lunaloca beat me to it.

I don't have any advice about nursing strikes that I didn't learn from Kelly (of kellymom.com) but I can offer a cyber-hug or two.

[BakerALM]

My 3mth old went on a nursing strike also! It is so hard! We did get back to the breast quickly but she would only nurse while she was almost asleep in a dark room while in motion! It was a PITA and when on like this for about 10wks!!!!!! But at least she was nursing. Any other time she would scream bloody murder and arch. I had a lot of help with my older daughter else I don't think we could have made it. Things are still not great and she does refuse to nurse much of the time or only nurse in 30second intervals. She is no where near as happy of a baby as she was before she went on strike since she will not comfort nurse to help calm her emotions. But things are getting better day by day.

I would try when she is sleepy they tend to forget what is going on when they are almost asleep. Also try any and all positions even strange ones, in motion and sitting also try new places in the house that she does not associate with nursing since you are really trying to get her to nurse even though she does not want to.

Another thing that helped us was to get her sucking on something, she likes to suck her blanket, then move her into nursing position with the nipple less than 1" away, pull the object out gently and hope that she opens wide looking for the object then you latch her and hope that she begins sucking. It is just a really long road! PM me if you want to chat!


Andrea