Older Child Latch Issues.

[redpajama]

I am tandem nursing my 3.25-year-old and 7-month-old.

My 3.25-year-old has recently developed an annoying latch problem (for lack of a better word), and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with anything like this. Where her mouth meets my breast, the latch is good. But when she's nursing, it's like she keeps breaking suction inside her mouth--like, with her tongue--resulting in a SUPER-IRRITATING (why? I don't know. But it's SUPER-IRRITATING) noise and an inefficient suckle. She says she's "getting milk," but she's mostly bringing a lot of milk to the surface without actually getting it out, if that makes sense.

She's never had latch issues before.

She's absolutely, positively not ready to wean any time soon. She is still nursing several times a day and is still in that stage where she would probably rather nurse than do most anything else.

She has some speech articulation issues that I've been beginning to wonder about (beginning to think they might be more than the type of thing that will "work itself out") and I'm wondering if the same factor(s) are affecting both.

I've checked for a tongue-tie; she's not.

Any thoughts? I've noticed that she seems to have fewer problems in some positions, and I feel like we'll work through this all right one way or another (I'm not really concerned, at this point, that this will hasten her weaning or anything), but I'm interested to hear if other people have experienced anything like this--particularly interested in a possible link to her articulation issues.

[averlee]

My daughter who's almost 3 does something that sounds just like what you describe. I definitely notice more in some positions than others. It bothers me a lot, too, and I tell her to stop that and nurse nice. If she keeps doing it, I take her off the breast and tell her, "That doesn't feel good to mama. If you want to nurse, you need to go on with a big mouth and stay on there until you're done." If she wants we try again, and if she keeps doing it, I take her off and send her off to play, or offer water, or read a story or something.

[woodchick]

Originally Posted by averlee

My daughter who's almost 3 does something that sounds just like what you describe. I definitely notice more in some positions than others. It bothers me a lot, too, and I tell her to stop that and nurse nice. If she keeps doing it, I take her off the breast and tell her, "That doesn't feel good to mama. If you want to nurse, you need to go on with a big mouth and stay on there until you're done." If she wants we try again, and if she keeps doing it, I take her off and send her off to play, or offer water, or read a story or something.

Exactly this! DD1 (almost 4 now) really only nurses well now when she's tired or distraught. Any other time she's always too distracted to get a decent latch. I can tell her that the latch is bad and she'll fix it.

[redpajama]

With my daughter, she doesn't seem to have any control over it. We've tried unlatching and relatching, "opening really wide," et cetera. She gets visibly frustrated when it keeps happening, and she can tell that it's bugging me too, I think, because she'll sometimes ask, "Can I please nurse? I'll try not to make that noise."

Like I said, I'm confident we'll get through it, and we're finding ways around it by nursing in different positions or whatever, but it would make me super-happy to (a) figure out what's causing it in the first place and (b) fix it.

Thanks for the responses so far--I'd love anyone else's insight, too!

[lookatreestar]

my dd is 3 and i noticed sometimes her latch is funky, in a pinching kind of way. it drives me batty but usually she will correct it if i ask her to. it usually happens when she is wanting to play and only nurse because her brother is nursing.