Help please, 5.5 month old pulling away CONSTANTLY while feeding

[sweetjane]

Need some help please!! 5.5 month old constantly sucks and then pulls away and roots again - tried winding him but it's the same even after he has burped. He's not looking round the room or anything, he just pulls away and latches back on for a couple of seconds and then pulls away again - but it's making me really really sore! He doesn't feed for that long anyway and usually only needs one side (5 mins-ish) but it's making me worried that my milk is running out or something. Anyone else had a similar problem and any ideas what I can do about it??

[thedrap]

i have been having similar problems and posted message couple of days ago... i thought it was problem with milk supply. was very upset and so was my baby (he is 13 weeks) i just wanted to feed him. gave him formula which seemed to make matters worse but he seemed better obviously because he was full but i was really worried about supply. i was told to try fenugreek seed capsules which i have and have also fed him more often. this seemed to be better and i felt fuller and with more milk until tonight when he just pulled away and screamed so i had to give him formula to settle him and will now have to express. so in short (not) i havent got any real words of wisdom but i understand

[sweetjane]

thanks.. I'm not really sure that it is my milk supply as he still seems to go about the same amount of time between feeds, roughly anyway. I will try the fenugreek again though, have had success with it in the past. I wonder if it's my letdown being too fast? It is slow to happen but once it starts flowing I wonder if it's too strong for him? It doesn't spurt though like it used to.. oh am waffling now.. too tired to think straight. Might see if HV has any words of wisdom tomorrow methinks unlikely...

[ELR]

my ds did this i just used to switch to other side and he would do it then too but he seemed fine after somone told me that it was because he was thirsty so only wanted fore milk thats why switching was ok settled down again after a few weeks

[thedrap]

good luck

[ratfly]

could his teeth be hurting him?

[EllieK]

when we had this problem it was because i/he had oral thrush and didn't realise as i had no obvious symptoms, i put the soreness down to his feeding when it was infact the thrush

[TheOldestCat]

My DD went through a stage of this - it lasted for a couple of weeks when she was about 4 months. I think it was teething pain. She seemed to prefer one side over the other, which suggested it was hurting her mouth. It passed - hope the same is true for you.

[Highlander]

they are wee f*ckers at this age . Both DSs went through a phase of this. DS2 still gets very distacted with other noise (ie DS1!) in the room.

DS2 was worse, as obviously there is more noise in the house. It took me a while to realise that I actually needed to find a quiet spot and 'insist' on a feed otherwise a vicious circle of hunger, tiredness, screaming, too tired to feed but still hungry etc would start.