easily distracted 9 month old

[megannt]

My DD is 9.5 months old. We started solids around 6 months old and are using the baby led weaning method. She eats solids twice a day, usually veggies and fruits.

I am having the hardest time getting my baby to nurse during the day, other than going down for naps. So she usually gets a good feeding right when she wakes up, then right before her two day time naps, and then right before she goes to bed. Sometimes I can get another good feeding out of her, but lately she just nurses until let down, and then I'm stuck with a leaky breast :)  She is so interested in the world around her, it's hard to keep her concentrated on nursing.

We co-sleep at night, so she is nursing through out the night. She wakes every 1-2 hours, which is fine with me. Obviously, I would like to have her sleep longer, but since we co-sleep it's really not a big deal. I know that if I fed her more during the day then she might get longer stretches of sleep, but I literally cannot get her to nurse longer than a minute or two before she is interested in something else. Sometimes I try to repeatedly put her back on the breast, but it's really just frustrating for both of us.

Sometimes she goes 5 hours during the day without nursing. Is this normal nursing behavior for this age? Is it normal for a baby this age to go through a stage where she eats all night long and hardly at all during the day? Maybe I'm just more on edge because she loved to nurse and would do it often, so this new behavior is something very new for me.

Any suggestions on ways to help her focus on breastfeeding? Or is this a stage I need to let pass? Any other mamas who have babies who want to nurse all night and not during the day?

I guess I am just looking for some kind of confirmation that this is normal behavior for this age. That  is what my gut instinct is, but this is my first, so I don't know for sure. I really don't mind nursing her all night if that is what is normal for this age, I'm really not looking to feed her more during the day to cut down night waking, I am just making sure that nursing so infrequently during the day is normal.

Thanks in advance.

[Erin77]

My son is seven months old and cranes his neck all over the place, pops off and on, pops up like a groundhog to make sure nothing else is going on, rolls over to try and grab something, etc etc during nursing. Argh!

For me, the only thing that helps is that I nurse him sidelying on the bed (even when we're not nursing to sleep) in a quiet room with nothing else going on, and I sing "Wheels on the Bus" quietly and pat his butt in time. Sometimes I hold his hand (that he usually uses to try and rip my glasses off, pull on my shirt, etc, ha ha) and tap it in time to the song. I make eye contact with him the whole time, too. Most of the time that seems to focus him enough to get a good session. Good luck! I am pretty sure that babies will nurse when they need to and she probably IS getting enough, but it's so frustrating. 

[nstewart]

I don't know if it's normal, but my almost 9 month old is exactly the same.  I think it is pretty normal at this age, as the whole wide world seems so interesting.  We also do BLW, and co-sleep and DS eats solids about 2 times per day.  I get him to nurse during the day by nursing him down for naps.  Now that he's down to 2 naps a day, I can sneak in another nursing session if I nurse him right when he wakes up from his longer nap while he's still all cuddly and relaxed.  Like PP I can also get him to nurse during the day (sometimes) if I lay down in bed with him and nurse side lying and ensure there are no other distractions around.  If we are not at home though (or not at someone's house where I can borrow a bedroom) then forget it!  Yesterday we were driving home from the ILs and he went 7 hours without nursing!