F U S S Y (!!!) nurser

[E m i c h i e e]

My son has always been fussy due to latching and supply issues, and maybe it is just part of his nature, but now at almost 3 months he is just getting crazy FUSSY.

Every time I nurse him we are having a battle. He is extremely impatient for letdown which he gets after 5-40 secs, and just complains and cries at the breast, accompanied by kicking, struggling, punching, squirming, pinching.

He also pulls hard on my nipples or bites down and twists them. Since we already have a not so good latch it gets me extremely sore.

Plus, lately he demands to nurse lying down only. Which is also hard for me because his latch is not as good when I'm on my side...= more pain.

Sadly even lying down he is not completely happy, he struggles with the flow...to slow, too fast..it is just never to his liking. When he is really frustrated he balls up and tries to dig into the sheets...

His mood seems to shift too, one second he is screaming, then he complains in baby talk and often he forgets about nursing because he is too busy looking and smiling at me, and then he also starts talking away.

Our nursing sessions have been very inconsistent because he often does not get himself completely full, and he does not drains my breasts well either. He will often nurse every 20 mins throughout the day, for 1 min and then act full or refuses the breast.

At night he nurses great though, he will accept cradle hold, which I do the first 1-2 times he wakes, and in the early morning hours I just let him do his thing and eat whenever he wants to while he sleeps in the crook of my arm (I started doing that because he used to wake up before he was fully rested, stay up for 2 hrs and then sleep another stretch.)

One thought we have is that he might be teething, or that his gums hurt? Since 2 months old he has been drooling a lot and gnawing away on or our hands. But technically he is really young?

Can someone help me understand? It is extremely hard to figure out what he wants.

[rinap]

Ugh. That sounds really frustrating. I'm afraid I can't help, but I will note that my girls started teething at about two and a half months.

[Megan73]

Have you been able to get to a LLL meeting yet or chat with a leader? It seems like you'd benefit from some real-world help and support!

[E m i c h i e e]

Originally Posted by Megan73 

Have you been able to get to a LLL meeting yet or chat with a leader? It seems like you'd benefit from some real-world help and support!

Yes, I have. They were able to help me a little with the latch. It seems he does not draw in my nipple far enough. Since, I have gotten a completely pain free latch 4 times (at first I was thinking he was not even sucking lol) when he was crying...that is the only time he opens his mouth wide, and we could not get him to open more.

BUT, in public he is less fussy nursing...most of the time he just focuses on eating, so I can never demonstrate his fussiness :(

I am planning to call and go to more meetings, but it might be a while. We are also very busy moving overseas within the next three weeks...(I already dread having him on a plane for 14 hrs)
 

[E m i c h i e e]

Originally Posted by rinap 

Ugh. That sounds really frustrating. I'm afraid I can't help, but I will note that my girls started teething at about two and a half months.

On my husbands side of the family babys started teething early too. And his grandma was born with teeth! I hope he is not teething because he will bite off my nipple and I don't think I can nurse him without nipples :(

Which reminds me, he bites quite a lot. He bites down before he pulls off, so you always hear a loud plop. It is even hard to get him off pain free when I insert my finger in the side of his mouth...I wonder why he does that.
 

[EchoSoul]

I read drooling shouldn't be considered a prime indicator of teething, as it's just what's babies do. :) But if it runs in the family, then that could be it. That nursing more frequently, swollen gums, and frequent wakings at night screaming are better indicators of teething. That said..

"He also pulls hard on my nipples or bites down and twists them. Since we already have a not so good latch it gets me extremely sore.

Plus, lately he demands to nurse lying down only. Which is also hard for me because his latch is not as good when I'm on my side...= more pain."

These might be indicators of Overactive Letdown. My son would compress my nipples too; it's their way of trying to slow down the flow. That and screaming at the breast, and sometimes going on a nursing strike(which can also be an indicator of teething I've read) are all signs of Overactive Letdown. Especially nursing lying down, because that is one of the best positions for a baby to nurse from a mother who has Overactive Letdown, because they're able to deal with the flow of milk better.

[E m i c h i e e]

Originally Posted by EchoSoul 

I read drooling shouldn't be considered a prime indicator of teething, as it's just what's babies do. :) But if it runs in the family, then that could be it. That nursing more frequently, swollen gums, and frequent wakings at night screaming are better indicators of teething. That said..

"He also pulls hard on my nipples or bites down and twists them. Since we already have a not so good latch it gets me extremely sore.

Plus, lately he demands to nurse lying down only. Which is also hard for me because his latch is not as good when I'm on my side...= more pain."

These might be indicators of Overactive Letdown. My son would compress my nipples too; it's their way of trying to slow down the flow. That and screaming at the breast, and sometimes going on a nursing strike(which can also be an indicator of teething I've read) are all signs of Overactive Letdown. Especially nursing lying down, because that is one of the best positions for a baby to nurse from a mother who has Overactive Letdown, because they're able to deal with the flow of milk better.

I don't think his gums are swollen, how can I tell? He wakes every 1-4 hrs, usually he will sleep 2 longer stretches and then wake more frequent for 10hrs all together.  I don't know if that is frequent for a 3 mth old, but I noticed that he is nursing more frequent during the day too, rather hourly than his usual 2 hrs or sometimes a bit longer.

Overactive letdown: I do have that :(, but it is weird because my flow is also slow. It is just never nice and steady...it starts off slow and he complains because of it, then he gets so much he comes off choking, I pat his back while I spray into the towel and then it slows down enough for him to complain again, until the next let down. I wonder if that can be fixed? I must have the most messed up boobs for a baby...they are just so unsuited for nursing and I try so hard...flat nipples, supply issues, bad flow...:(

Nursing Strike: He has never had a bottle....how would I even nurse him if that happens? So far he has never fully refused it..well, aside from the second day in the hospital...when the nurses tried to force him to the breast and then said "he can't latch on your nipples, you might just have to bottle feed" -.-...sorry, just a bit frustrated, but back then we were given a nipple shield and I feel it partially caused a bad latch now, he latches on my nipple as if he was latching on the shield.

[EchoSoul]

To my understanding they don't go on a nursing strike for very long; just long enough for their mouth to feel better. My son went for like an hour on a nursing strike when he was a couple month old before I realized I had Overactive Letdown. Then I found the ways to help - sidelay nursing, unattaching them at letdown to squirt into a cloth, block feeding, etc. The last two sucked for us both because I'm one of the few women that can't feel letdown. Actually I only began feeling it a few months ago after we had already gotten a system down. And block feeding I couldn't really do either because my right breast engorges so quickly(it was the first one to fill with milk after his birth). I wouldn't worry about a nursing strike - I'm sorry to have scared you! He wouldn't do it long enough to starve himself to illness. Babies are smart! :)

Have you tried suck training? That was a God send for us. He spent his first couple days after birth in the NICU - force-fed a bottle even after I had successfully breastfed him, and suck training was our tool for a good couple months until his tongue placement for breastfeeding became instinct instead of tongue placement for the bottle nipple. Just before you latch him, insert your finger, pad up, into his mouth, when he starts sucking on it, pull your finger out and latch him to your breast. Keep doing it until he gets it down. Like I said, it took my son a couple months, and he had been bottle-fed. I don't know how nipple shields work or how they latch onto them, but it should potentially do the trick I'd think.

My son's teething - his gums aren't swollen persay, but he's got white pressure marks at the back of his mouth(teething in reverse?). "Swollen" just seems to be how people refer to it.