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Feeding Max has become a bit of a nightmare lately.
For whatever reason he has decided that breast-feeding makes him cranky. Ungrateful baby if you ask me!
So far I haven't really been able to work out if there is any pattern to his fussing. And when I say fussing I mean him arching his back, throwing his head back and screaming at the top of his lungs. Sometimes he does it in the morning when I have way too much milk, sometimes it is at the start of a feed when my let down happens, other times it is towards the end of a feed when there isn't much milk coming out and other times it is two or three minutes into a feed and seems to be for no reason at all. Aghhhhh.
We have been to the early feeding clinic, I've phoned the Australian Breast Feeding Association, I've been to a GP and seen the paedeatrition. They have all come up with various ideas on why he is fussing (except for the GP who practically ignored me). A blocked nose, silent reflux, not wanting to have to work for his food, my diet and kharma have all been mentioned....
The paedeatrition has given him an antacid to take twice a day and I have tried lots of other things like changing up his feeding positions (for example keeping him more upright or lying down with him), switching sides when he fusses, expressing milk first before feeding him and standing on one leg and singing whilst nursing (ok, not really, but somedays I am tempted to try anything).
So far I have only found two options that seem to work. The first is feeding him expressed milk from a bottle. It doesn't seem to matter if we feed him the bottle sitting up or lying on his back, he will take it and feed like a champion. At first I was expressing by hand, but that got really tiring. So we went out and bought a Medela Swing Breast Pump. It works like a charm! The second thing that works is if we let him scream for about twenty minutes (on and off while we try to comfort him). This seems to really tire him out and afterwards he will feed without complaining. It's hard doing it this way though, it makes my heart feel like it is breaking into a million pieces.
I am starting to think that there isn't really any reason for his screaming. Maybe he is just a fussy little man.
In the meantime I am trying to nurse him each time he gets hungry and if he refuses or screams too much I switch to a bottle.
I hope he grows out of it soon.
T xx